NEW YORK -- CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) announced Monday the official launch of the new continental club championship, the CONCACAF Champions League which will commence in August 2008. The CONCACAF Champions League will replace the Champions' Cup which will cease to exist after the 2008 edition.

The CONCACAF Champions League will see a Confederation record number of 24 teams from all sectors of the CONCACAF region participating. The preliminary round begins in August 2008 with the first CONCACAF Champions League winner to be crowned in late April 2009.

The CONCACAF Champions League will feature four teams from Mexico and USA; three Caribbean sides; two clubs each from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama; and one representative coming from Canada, Belize, and Nicaragua.

Eight clubs (two Mexican, two USA, one each from Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador) will be seeded and progress directly to the first round of the CONCACAF Champions League, while the Caribbean slots have been increased to three teams for this event.

The remaining 16 teams will be paired in eight home-and-away preliminary match-ups taking place from 26-28 August and 2-4 September.

The preliminary round winners will join the other eight seeded teams in the group stage that consists of four groups of four. All the teams in each group will play each other in a round-robin system during six match dates (three home games, three away games) from 16 September - 30 October.

The top two clubs from each group will advance to the knock out phase playing home-and-away elimination. The quarterfinals commence in February 2009; semifinals begin in March; and the Finals will take place in late April.

The CONCACAF Champions League winner will qualify as the CONCACAF's representative to the 2009 edition of the FIFA Club World Cup.

Read more about it including the schedule over on MLSNet.com

Univision announces Spanish language broadcast rights.

The format of the CONCACAF Champions League calls for qualifying round matches, round-robin group play and a knockout or elimination round. Play begins each year in August and concludes with the finals series the following April. Univision plans to televise 52 primetime matches in total each year, primarily on its TeleFutura and Galavisión Networks.

“Univision is extremely happy to partner with CONCACAF to help launch this new event,” said David Downs, President of Univision Sports. “The success of this event in our market should even surpass the high standards achieved by such other continental club soccer competitions as the UEFA Champions League and South America’s Copa Libertadores. Our wonderful experience this past summer with the SuperLiga has convinced us that the competitive parity, passion and intensity of the rivalries across our region demands the creation of this event.”

“CONCACAF is very excited to expand our partnership with Univision through the CONCACAF Champions League, a new and truly unique championship,” said Chuck Blazer General Secretary of CONCACAF, “The Univision Networks’ positioning in the Spanish-speaking community in the United States will ensure broad television distribution and a very positive fan experience.”