WK League News

The draw for the group stage of the 2026-27 AFC Women’s Champions League took place yesterday at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 2025 WK League champions Hwacheon KSPO were drawn in Group B, with matches scheduled to take place in early November in Kolkata, India.

In KSPO’s first continental campaign, the club will face hosts East Bengal FC as well as Vietnamese side Ho Chi Minh City WFC and North Korean military team 4.25 Sports Club. The group winners and runners-up, and the two best placed third-placed teams, will progress to the knockout stage of the competition.

The draw for the knockout stage will take place in December, with quarter finals to be played next March in single-legged ties hosted by the group winners and top ranking side among the runners-up. The semi-finals and final will kick off in a centralised venue in May.

Group B’s hosts are Indian side East Bengal FC, making their second AWCL appearance. The two-time Indian Women’s League champions finished third in their group last year, failing to qualify for the knockout stage of the tournament. In the preliminary stage of this year’s tournament, East Bengal won all three of their matches, scoring 18 goals without conceding any.

Joining Hwacheon and East Bengal in the group are Ho Chi Minh City WFC, one of Vietnam’s oldest women’s football teams, and its most successful. Their domestic achievements include seven consecutive V Women’s League titles from 2019-2025. In the 2024-25 AWCL, Ho Chi Minh City finished second in their group, earning quarter-final hosting rights as the highest ranking runner-up. They beat Abu Dhabi Country Club 5-4 to progress to the semi-finals, where they were knocked out by eventual champions Wuhan Jiangda. In last year’s competition, they again progressed as group runners-up, and were again knocked out by the eventual champions, Naegohyang WFC, this time in the quarter-finals.

Rounding out the group are AWCL debutantes 4.25 Sports Club. 4.25 SC is the North Korean equivalent of South Korea’s Sangmu, meaning that all players are army officers. 4.25 SC have been national champions on several occasions and will now make their first AWCL appearance after winning all three of their games in the tournament’s preliminary stage. The side’s presence in Group B means that for a second consecutive year, club teams from either side of the 38th parallel will meet in the group stage of the AWCL — Suwon FC were drawn in the same group as Naegohyang WFC in the 2025-26 edition of the competition.

The timing of the group stage of the competition will likely have a knock-on effect for the WK League, as the scheduled matches clash with the playoff and championship final.