AFF Championship


The AFF Championship is a biennial international association football competition, contested by the men's national teams of the member of ASEAN Football Federation, determining the sub-continental champion of Southeast Asia.
It was founded as the Tiger Cup after Singapore-based Asia Pacific Breweries, makers of Tiger Beer, sponsored the competition from its inauguration in 1996 until the 2004 edition. After Asia Pacific Breweries withdrew as title sponsors, the competition was known as the AFF Championship for the 2007 edition. From 2008, Japanese auto-company Suzuki bought the naming rights for the competition, and the competition has therefore been named the AFF Suzuki Cup for sponsorship reasons.
The winner of the AFF Championship qualifies for the AFF–EAFF Champions Trophy.
The 12 AFF Championship tournaments have been won by four national teams; Thailand have won five titles, Singapore has four titles, Vietnam has two titles and Malaysia with one title.
The most recent championship in 2018, was won by Vietnam, who beat Malaysia 3–2 on aggregate in the final.

History

The first ASEAN Championship took place in 1996 with the six founding members of ASEAN Federation competing with four nations being invited that came in that region. The final saw Thailand become the first champions of ASEAN as they defeated Malaysia 1-0 in Singapore. The top four nations automatically qualified through to the finals in the following edition. This meant the other six nations had to compete in qualifying for the remaining four spots. Myanmar, Singapore, Laos and Philippines all made it through to the main tournament.

Organisation

Sports marketing, media and event management firm, Lagardère Sports has been involved in the tournament since the inaugural edition in 1996.
Between 1996 and 2006, Tiger Beer was the title sponsor. Suzuki Motors has been title sponsor of the tournament since 2008.

Results

From 2004, the knockout stage is played over two legs on a home-and-away format.
Since the 2007 edition, there was no third place match. Hence, semi-finalists are listed in alphabetical order. Moreover, the away goals rule was initially not applied in the earlier tournaments, but only from the 2010 edition.
Starting with the 2018 edition, a new format was applied. The nine highest ranked teams would automatically qualify with the 10th and 11th ranked teams playing in a two-legged qualifier. The 10 teams were split in two groups of five and play a round robin system, with each team playing two home and two away fixtures. A draw was made to determine where the teams play while the format of the knockout round remained unchanged.

Performances by country

Participating nations

;Legend
TournamentMost Valuable PlayerTop ScorerGoalsFair Play
1996 Zainal Abidin Hassan Natipong Sritong-In7
1998 Nguyễn Hồng Sơn Myo Hlaing Win4Not Awarded
2000 Kiatisuk Senamuang Gendut Doni Christiawan5
2000 Kiatisuk Senamuang Worrawoot Srimaka5
2002 Therdsak Chaiman Bambang Pamungkas8Not Awarded
2004 Lionel Lewis Ilham Jaya Kesuma7Not Awarded
2007 Noh Alam Shah Noh Alam Shah10Not Awarded
2008 Dương Hồng Sơn Budi Sudarsono4
2008 Dương Hồng Sơn Agu Casmir4
2008 Dương Hồng Sơn Teerasil Dangda4
2010 Firman Utina Safee Sali5
2012 Shahril Ishak Teerasil Dangda5
2014 Chanathip Songkrasin Safiq Rahim6
2016 Chanathip Songkrasin Teerasil Dangda6
2018 Nguyễn Quang Hải Adisak Kraisorn8

Overall top goalscorers

All-time ranking table

RankTeamPartBest finish
1127043161115188+63145
2126534171413672+64119
31262311219157111+57105
4126528152211273+3999
5125628141410254+4898
61242147215491-3749
7114084283544–928
81135253029141–12111
972630232391–689
1014103115–143
1128008632–260