Korean football league adjusts fixtures ahead of Asian club tournament

The top South Korean football league announced changes to its fixtures on Tuesday, a move designed to accommodate teams playing at a continental tournament in October.

The six K League 1 matches set for Sept. 25-27 will be played Sept. 15-16. Matches set for Oct. 4 will instead take place Aug. 25-26.

Four K League 1 clubs -- Suwon Samsung Bluewings, Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, FC Seoul and Ulsan Hyundai FC -- are competing in the annual Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League. The tournament kicked off in February but came to a halt after a couple of matches due to the COVID-19 outbreak across the continent.

The AFC announced partial new fixtures on July 28, with Suwon in Group G and Jeonbuk in Group H set to complete their preliminary round from Oct. 17 to Nov. 1. All matches will be held in the centralized venue of Malaysia.

Match schedules for FC Seoul in Group E and Ulsan Hyundai FC in Group F have not been determined, though they are also expected to take place in October and November.

K League 1 teams have played 15 matches so far this season.

They'll play seven more before teams are split into two tiers: with the top six in Final A and the bottom six in Final B. They will then play five more matches within their own group before the final rankings are determined.

Following Tuesday's changes, the last matches for all 12 clubs before the split stage will be played on Sept. 20.

The schedule for the final five matches for the clubs will be announced later.

The K League said it will remain flexible with its fixtures, as there could be more changes to the AFC Champions League matches. (Yonhap)