CONCACAF expands club competition field, implements new Champions League format

The expanded CONCACAF club competitions platform will feature 31 club teams – increased from 24 -- beginning with the 2017/18 season. Sixteen clubs from countries around the region, including Canada, Mexico and the United States, Central America and the Caribbean, will compete in a concentrated CONCACAF Champions League to be disputed between February and May of each year.

PHASE ONE

For the new club tournament, runner-up, third, and fourth place teams from from the 2017 Caribbean Club Championship, taking place in the first half of the year throughout the Caribbean, will join 13 qualifiers from across the Central American region – two each from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, and one from Belize. It is called the Scotiabank CONCACAF League (CL)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_CONCACAF_League

PHASE TWO

The champion of the CL will qualify directly for the Champions League, to be played between February and May of 2018. There, that club will join 15 others – four qualifiers each from Mexico and the United States, the champion of the 2017 Caribbean Club Championship, the Canadian champion, and the overall champions of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama.



The format of the new Champions League will mirror the first tournament, with eight home-and-away knockout pairings kicking off four rounds, culminating in the home-and-away Grand Final of the CONCACAF Champions League, which provides the Confederation champion with a berth in the FIFA Club World Cup. The league’s compact new design and dual-tournament format means all of the Confederation’s teams will be able to contest a full championship in a time period fully within one league season, so clubs can take home a trophy while beginning and ending a Champions League phase with the same group of players.

http://www.concacaf.com/article/concacaf...gue-format