Champions League 4

The IFCF Champions' League 4 was the 77th edition of the world club football championship, and the fourth under the current IFCF Champions' League title organized by the International Federation of Club Football (IFCF).

Association team allocation
The association ranking based on the IFCF country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:
 * Associations 1–4 each had four teams qualify.
 * Associations 5–8 each had three teams qualify.
 * Associations 9–32 each had two teams qualify.
 * Associations 33 and below, including unranked associations, each had one team qualify.
 * The winners of IFCF Champions' League 3 and Challenger's Cup 3 were each given an additional entry if they did not qualify for the competition through their domestic league. However, both berths were not required as the title winners have both qualified via their domestic league.

Distribution
The following was the access list for this season:

Teams
League positions of the previous season shown in parentheses (TH: Champions' League title holders; CC: Challenger's Cup title holders).

Preliminary rounds
In the preliminary rounds and the play-off round, teams were divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their IFCF club coefficients, and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties.

First preliminary round
Team 1 played the first leg at home. The losers entered the IFCF Challenger's Cup second preliminary round.


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Second preliminary round
The second qualifying round was split into two separate sections: Champions' path (for league champions) and Non-champions' path (for league non-champions). The losers entered the IFCF Challenger's Cup third preliminary round. Team 1 played the first leg at home.


 * + Champions' Path


 * }


 * + Non-champions' path


 * }

Third preliminary round
The second qualifying round was split into two separate sections: Champions' path (for league champions) and Non-champions' path (for league non-champions). The losers entered the IFCF Challenger's Cup play-off round. Team 1 played the first leg at home.


 * + Champions' path


 * }


 * + Non-champions' path


 * }

Play-off round
The play-off round was split into two separate sections: Champions' path (for league champions) and Non-champions' path (for league non-champions). The losers from the champions' path entered the IFCF Challenger's Cup group stage, while the losers from the non-champions' path entered the IFCF Challenger's Cup qualifying stage. Team 1 played the first leg at home.

Group stage
The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots based on the following principles:


 * Pot 1 contained the Champions League and Challengers Cup title holders, and the champions of the top six associations based on their IFCF nation coefficients. If one or both title holders were one of the champions of the top six associations, the champions of the next highest ranked association(s) would also be seeded into Pot 1.
 * Pot 2, 3 and 4 contained the remaining teams, seeded based on their IFCF club coefficients.

In each group, teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advanced to the Round of 16, while the third-placed teams entered the IFCF Challengers Cup round of 32.

The youth teams of the clubs that qualified for the group stage also participated in Rising Stars Cup 4 on the same matchdays, where they competed in the IFCF Champions' League Path (the youth domestic champions of associations entering that competition other than those already qualified for the Champions' League group stage competed in a separate Youth Champions Path until the play-offs).

Tiebreakers
In the group stage, the ranking of teams in each group was based on the following criteria:
 * 1) Points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss);
 * 2) Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 3) Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 4) Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 5) Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 6) If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
 * 7) Goal difference in all group matches;
 * 8) Goals scored in all group matches;
 * 9) Away goals scored in all group matches;
 * 10) Wins in all group matches;
 * 11) Away wins in all group matches;
 * 12) Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
 * 13) IFCF club coefficient.

Knockout stages
In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final. The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:


 * In the draw for the round of 16, the eight group winners were seeded, and the eight group runners-up are unseeded. The seeded teams were drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the second leg. Teams from the same group or the same association could not be drawn against each other.
 * In the draws for the quarter-finals and semi-finals, there were no seedings, and teams from the same group or the same association could be drawn against each other.