DUSHANBE, September 20, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan’s football champion Regar TadAZ of Tursunzoda is representing Tajikistan in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) President’s Cup 2007 that kicked off in Lahore, Pakistan today, Asia-Plus has learned at the National Football Federation of Tajikistan.

Regar TadAZ will compete with Transport United (Bhutan), Pakistan Army (Pakistan), and Ratnam Sports Club (Sri Lanka) in Group A for playing in the semifinal.

Regar TadAZ became the very first AFC President’s Cup champions by defeating Dordai Dynamo of Kyrgyzstan 3-0 in the finals in Katmandu in May 2005. Regar remained undefeated in the whole tournament and its convincing win against the Kyrgyz saw it win the inaugural President’s Cup and pocket $50,000 as the top prize.  Dordoi, the runners up, got $25,000.

The AFC President''s Cup 2007 is the third edition of the AFC President’s Cup, a competition for football clubs in countries categorized as "emerging nations" by the Asian Football Confederation.  The eight teams that compete are split up into two groups and play each other team in their group once.  The winner of each group then plays the runner up in the other group in the semifinals, and the winners of the semifinal matches play in the final match to determine the winner. There is no third place match. Games will be played in Lahore, Pakistan between 20 and 30 September, 2007.

Qualification to the competition is to clubs from AFC-affiliated countries which fall into the AFC''s ''emerging nations'' category as laid out in their ''Vision Asia'' document.  Countries which are ''mature'' and ''developing'' nations are entered into the AFC Champion League and the AFC Cup, respectively.  For an ''emerging nation'' to have a team representing it in the competition, however, the country must have an acceptable football league. The team that represents a country in one season of the competition is the defending champion of the top-level leagues of participating