Football News: The Asian Champions League is a failed "product communication", and no distinct Asian elements are found

May 5th, after the first season of the AFC Elite League came to an end, the Football News published an article commenting on this event, believing it was a failed "product communication".

AFC copied the Champions League in full and created the AFC Elite League (ACLE), and regarded it as a trump card "product" that enhances the global influence and commercial value of Asian club events. As early as last year, the AFC conducted a comprehensive and in-depth integration of the AFC Elite League in all aspects of event brand positioning, visual identity, communication strategy and commercial operations. In this process, the AFC has always benchmarked the Champions League in a comprehensive manner, carrying out the "product communication" and core marketing packaging of the AFC elite league.

However, after the first season of the AFC Elite League, this "product" of the AFC did not achieve the expected results in communication and marketing. The AFC Champions League (ACLE) should have a distinct intercontinental personality and football culture style like other continental Champions Leagues, but in the end it was just a capital football carnival for Saudi football giants. If there was no tenacious existence of Kawasaki striker in this semifinals, would people think that this final stage is just a few Asian tours of "European outdated star teams"?

AFC Elite League, an event "product" that should represent the whole of Asia, was completely failed at least in terms of communication and marketing. After all, no continental league will actively be covered by more advanced events in all aspects. But the current Asian Elite League is more like the "low-end version" of the temporary integration of the Champions League in Asia. Even in the trophy that represents the highest honor for Asian club football, there is no distinct Asian cultural element.

The Asian Champions League Elite League and the Champions League adopt the same Swiss round system, and there are only two companies in the global intercontinental competition. However, because Asia is too vast, the team cannot implement a relatively more thorough Swiss round-robin system like the Champions League, and can only continue to divide the East and West Asian divisions, thereby greatly reducing the attractiveness of the league stage in the draw.

Although the AFC staggers the game time with the Champions League as much as possible to avoid being "overwhelmed" by the Champions League in communication and marketing, it is still basically set according to the Champions League schedule, but there are differences between the East and East Asian regions. The match day of the AFC Elite League is scheduled within 3 days. When the UEFA Champions League match day, try to arrange the East Asian region with a larger jet lag as much as possible, but half of the matches in the West Asian region still collide with the Champions League. The AFC semi-finals in the quarterfinals also coincided with the Champions League semi-finals, which is an incomprehensible case of product communication failure for any backward intercontinental Champions League.

Even the longer history and greater influence of the South American Liberators Cup, they choose to avoid the overly powerful communication power of the Champions League and protect their local influence and commercial value as much as possible. However, the new version of the AFC Elite League has almost no real breakthrough in inheriting the Asian football cultural tradition and establishing the personality style of Asian competitions. If so, it is a one-side that is tilted towards West Asia in an all-round way, rather than taking into account the diversity of the entire Asian cultural elements.

The Asian Champions League Elite League, from the match period, competition system, foreign players to the "product" logo, the design, communication and marketing represented by the "product" of the event are more like the "low imitation" version of Saudi football with Europe as the template. When an intercontinental competition only aims to copy European events in a complete way, it naturally loses its own cultural independence and recognition of the event.

Asian football has completely turned to West Asia and even Saudi Arabia in recent years, which is by no means a good thing for the balanced development of Asian football. Saudi football is eager to enter Europe like Qatar and gain recognition from the European football community, which is beyond reproach, but they should not be sacrificed with intercontinental events like the Asian Champions League. As representatives of Asian football, the AFC Champions League and the Asian Cup still need to regain their unique personality and identity in order to truly win respect. Otherwise, as the senior executives of the Saudi League said: a star like Ronaldo has indeed brought global attention to Saudi football, but it did not allow Saudi football to show its personality and style. In this sense, the failure of the Saudi League as a competition product communication and marketing actually has the same internal logic as the AFC Elite League.