In fact, before the Japan Emperor's Cup finals, the list of participating teams in the 2021 AFC Champions League has been released. According to the AFC's plan, the group draw ceremony will be held on January 27. The expanded East Asian first division will have 5 groups, and only the first place and the 3 best second-placed teams can advance to the knockout rounds.

In the 2021 season, the AFC Champions League will expand to 40 teams, with 20 teams in the East and West Asia regions and 5 groups in each. The Chinese Super League's AFC Champions League quota is still 3+1, that is, Suning, Evergrande and Luneng will participate in the main game, and Guoan will enter the play-off round of the preliminaries. The Japanese J-League is also 3+1, and the Korean K-League is 2+2.

After all participating teams are announced, the AFC will conduct a group draw ceremony on January 27. This is also the latest group draw ceremony in the history of the AFC Champions League.

Since the number of groups in the East Asia region has been expanded to 5, the qualifying rules have also changed. There is no suspense about the promotion of the first place in the 5 groups, but only 3 groups in the 2nd place can qualify, that is, the 3 best group second places, and the remaining 2 second place groups have no chance to qualify.

For the Chinese Super League teams, the new qualifying rules have increased the difficulty of promotion, especially in the 2020 AFC Champions League. When the overall performance of the Chinese Super League teams is not good, the AFC Champions League in the 2021 season, the Chinese Super League How many teams can advance?