Challengers Cup 4

IFCF Challenger’s Cup 4 was the fourth edition of the international club tournament organized by the International Federation of Club Football (IFCF).

Association team allocation
All associations, ranked and unranked, were entitled to enter three teams into the competition.

Distribution
The following was the access list for this season:

Teams
The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round:
 * 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th: League position
 * CW: Domestic Cup winners
 * LC: League Cup winners
 * LPO: End-of-season league playoffs
 * CL: Transferred from the Champions’ League
 * GS: Third-placed teams from the group stage
 * PO: Losers from the play-off round
 * P3: Losers from the third preliminary round
 * P2: Losers from the second preliminary round
 * P1: Losers from the first preliminary round

Preliminary rounds
In the preliminary rounds, the play-off round, and the qualifying 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. Teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other.

First preliminary round
Team 1 played the first leg at home.

Second preliminary round
Team 1 played the first leg at home.

Third preliminary round
Team 1 played the first leg at home.

Play-off round
Team 1 played the first leg at home.

Qualifying round
Team 1 played the first leg at home.

Group stage
The 48 teams were drawn into twelve 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 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 32, where they were joined by the eight third-placed teams of the IFCF Champions’ League group stage.

Knockout stage
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 32, the twelve group winners and the four third-placed teams from the Champions' League group stage with the better group records were seeded, and the twelve group runners-up and the other four third-placed teams from the Champions' League group stage were 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 round of 16, 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. A draw was also held to determine which semi-final winner would be designated as the "home" team for the final (for administrative purposes as it is played at a neutral venue).