Challengers Cup

The Challengers Cup is an international football club competition organized by the IFCF involving the three highest-placed teams from each association which did not qualify for the Champions League. Teams that are eliminated from the Champions League prior to its knockout phase also enter the Challengers Cup at the subsequent round.

The competition was conceived as a successor to the UICA Globe Cup. The inaugural Challengers Cup, in the season that would have seen the 72nd Globe Cup, saw Malabon SC become the first Fleftic club to win a major international club title as they beat Port Sebastian 1–0 at Macquarie Docklands in Latrobe.

After the qualifying phase, 48 teams contest the group stage. Divided into groups of four, they play a home-and-away round robin with the top two teams of each group advancing to the first knockout round of 32 teams, where they are joined by teams finishing third in the group stage of the Champions League. Beginning with the IFCF 14 cycle, third-place teams in the Challengers Cup group stage advance to the Associations Trophy round of 32. Knockout rounds are contested in two-legged ties, with each team playing one match at home. The final is a single match played at a venue selected each season at the start of the tournament.

With their clubs having won two Challengers Cups each, Chromatika, Squornshelan Remnant States, and Zwangzug are the most successful national associations in this tournament. By winning the Challengers Cup 15 final, Metropolis Alligators became the first club to win both the Globe Cup and the Challengers Cup.

Clubs

 * Globe Cup and Challengers Cup combined