Footballing Weekly: Will new Shopee Cup be one competition too many for Southeast Asia players?

New tournament will jostle for attention with AFC Champions League, domestic competitions as well as World Cup qualifiers

·Editor

11 April 2024 at 3:04 am·2-min read

Southeast Asia footballers could be playing for two major trophies for the upcoming season: the Shopee Cup (left) and the ASEAN Mitsubishi Electric Cup. (PHOTOS: Yahoo News Singapore/Getty Images)

SINGAPORE — There have been plenty of changes happening in Southeast Asian football this year, with domestic leagues such as the Singapore Premier League (SPL) and Malaysia Super League (MSL) made the switch into a two-year schedule to begin aligning with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) club competitions.

Last week brought another major change in regional football, as the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) announced a new club championship, the Shopee Cup, which is set to feature 14 of Southeast Asia's top football clubs competing for the right to be called ASEAN's best.

The tournament is also set to run throughout the 2024/25 season - concurrently with the domestic league and cup competitions, as well as AFC's Champions League Elite, AFC Champions League 2 and AFC Challenge League tournaments.

Packed 2024/25 season for SEA footballers

Together with international football fixtures during the season such as the World Cup/Asian Cup qualifiers and AFF's own ASEAN Mitsubishi Electric Cup, it is shaping up to be a packed season for the top Southeast Asian footballers.

For example, a elite player in Singapore's Lion City Sailors could be competing on as many as four fronts - the SPL, the Singapore Cup, the AFC Champions League 2 and the Shopee Cup. In addition, he may earn international call-ups to playing World Cup/Asian Cup qualifiers as well as the year-end ASEAN Cup.

Will all these competitions exact a physical toll on the elite Southeast Asian players? Should the top clubs be better equipped to prepare their players for the upcoming physical grind? Will there be enough fan support to sustain all the competitions?

Join the discussion on the "Footballing Weekly" podcast show as co-hosts Neil Humphreys and Chia Han Keong tackle the issues surrounding regional football.

Follow the new EPL season with all segments of this week's "Footballing Weekly" show on YouTube. If you wish the hear the show in its entirety, visit the show's Spotify and Acast pages.

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Packed 2024/25 season for SEA footballers

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