ASEAN football body to draw lots for ASEAN Cup on 15 Jan 2026

THE ASEAN Cup, the high­est-profile event for the South­east Asian national football teams, will be drawn into groups in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 15 Jan­uary 2026.

The ASEAN Cup, which began in 1996, will celebrate its 30th anniversary in the up­coming tournament and will be held for the first time with a new sponsor and will be called the ASEAN Hyundai Cup 2026.

The ASEAN Football Feder­ation will hold the tournament in a format with five teams par­ticipating and divided into two groups. According to the ASEAN Football Federation, nine teams – Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philip­pines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam (defending champion) – will play final group matches. The two lowest-ranked teams, namely Brunei and Timor-Leste, have to face each other in the play-off round to compete for the remaining official partici­pation. Each participating team will play four group games: two home matches and two away matches.

The tournament will take place from 24 July to 26 Au­gust 2026. The Myanmar team has never reached the final of the tournament and has only reached the semifinals of the tourney in 2004 and 2016.

The ASEAN Hyundai Cup 2026 was formerly named the Ti­ger Cup, ASEAN Championship and ASEAN Suzuki Cup Cham­pionship, respectively. Thailand has won the championship title seven times, while Singapore has grabbed the title four times, Vietnam three times and Ma­laysia once. — Ko Nyi Lay/KZL