At the 36th Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Congress held on April 28 in Vancouver (Canada), FIFA and AFC will work with 11 ASEAN member federations (AFF) to agree on the competition format for the first FIFA ASEAN Cup held in September and October 2026.
Initial information shows that the tournament may apply a knockout format, with the participation of all 11 teams in the region, instead of dividing into groups like the previous AFF Cup.
According to the spreading plan, the teams will be divided into brackets based on the FIFA rankings. The two highest-ranked teams in the region, Thailand and Vietnam, are directly in the quarterfinals. The next group including Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia are also arranged in favorable brackets.
In one bracket, the Philippines and Malaysia will face off to compete for a semi-final spot. Thailand is likely to meet the winner in the match between Cambodia and Laos, before competing for a ticket to the final.
Meanwhile, the Vietnamese team is in the remaining bracket, expected to face one of the two teams Myanmar or Brunei in the quarterfinals. If they advance, the opponent of coach Kim Sang-sik's team may be Indonesia or the winning team in the match between Singapore and Timor Leste.
With this bracketing method, the Vietnamese team is assessed to have a relatively favorable journey to go deep. Notably, each team only plays a maximum of 4 matches throughout the tournament, suitable for the FIFA Days schedule in September and October.
The shortened number of matches also helps high-ranked teams such as Vietnam and Thailand have more time to recover, especially in the context of just participating in the previous AFF Cup (expected to take place from the end of July to the end of August 2026).
However, the official format still needs to be approved by FIFA, AFC and AFF member federations in the upcoming meeting.
Previously, FIFA approved the organization of the FIFA ASEAN Cup, a tournament introduced at the ASEAN Summit in 2025 in Malaysia and expected to receive positive responses from countries in the region.
