CONCACAF League

CONCACAF League (Liga CONCACAF) - an international club competition organised by CONCACAF that ran from 2017 to 2022 as a secondary continental tournament and a qualification route into the confederation’s top club competition. Regulations: the tournament was played as a knockout competition with home-and-away two-leg series in every round and, in its final format, included a Preliminary Round (12 clubs) followed by a Round of 16 (six Preliminary Round winners joined ten seeded clubs), then quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final, with seeding and several procedural elements based on CONCACAF’s club ranking. In the Preliminary Round, Round of 16, quarter-finals and semi-finals the winner was determined by aggregate score, if level the away-goals criterion applied in regulation time and, if still level, the tie went directly to penalties with no extra time, while in the final away goals had no additional value and a level aggregate led to extra time and then penalties if required. A performance ranking table was used for certain determinations and qualification purposes, using 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw, with tie-breakers including goal difference, goals scored, away goals, wins, away wins, disciplinary points and drawing of lots, and the CONCACAF League champion plus the next five best-ranked clubs earned places in the next edition of the confederation’s top club tournament. The competition was later replaced within CONCACAF’s revamped regional-cup pathway.