Vietnam will be the preliminary hosts for a group stage at the My Dinh National Stadium in Hanoi where they won their only title after defeating Thailand over two legs in the finals in 2008.
Defending champions Singapore will host the remaining group matches in 2014 at its new national stadium which is scheduled to be inaugurated this December.
Vietnam hosted the biennial football competition in 1998, 2004 and 2010, and Singapore, who claimed their fourth title after outplaying Thailand on aggregate last December, has also been the host of the tournament three times before in 1996, 2002 and 2007.
All national teams in Southeast Asia participating in the biggest regional football event will be divided into two groups, and the top two teams from each group qualify to play in the semi-finals and finals at home and away.
The new competition format requiring all teams in the region to take part in the group stage matches as pre-qualifiers has been removed and will be applied to the next edition of the AFF Cup.
The AFF also announced on the same day that the ASEAN Super League will kick off in 2015 with 16 representative clubs from eight countries in the region including Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
Each member nation will send its two clubs to take part in the Super League, with three non-Asian players and two Asian players from a country other than that represented by the team allowed on each team’s squad.
The initiative was started by the AFF three years ago aiming to further develop football in Southeast Asia and help enable regional teams to keep up with the stronger ones in Asia.
