The 2002–03 AFC Champions League was the twenty-second edition of Asia's premier football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and the first edition under the AFC Champions League title.
Sixteen teams competed in this edition as they went through qualifying before going into four groups of four with only the winner of the group qualifying to the knockout-stage which went to two-legs instead of the single leg that the previous year competition had. In the final it was Al-Ain of the United Arab Emirates beating BEC Tero Sasana of Thailand 2–1 on aggregate.
Qualification
West Asia
Al-Talaba
Al Sadd
Al-Hilal
Al-Ain
Central and Southern Asia
Esteghlal
Persepolis
Nisa Aşgabat
Pakhtakor
ASEAN
BEC Tero Sasana
Osotsapa FC
East Asia
Dalian Shide
Shanghai Shenhua
Kashima Antlers
Shimizu S-Pulse
Daejeon Citizen
Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma
Group stage
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Knock-out stage
Bracket
Semi-finals
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First leg
Second leg
BEC Tero Sasana won 3–2 on aggregate.
Al-Ain won 7–6 on aggregate.
Final
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First leg
Second leg
Al-Ain won 2–1 on aggregate.
Top scorers
9
Hao Haidong (Dalian Shide) 4 Boubacar Sanogo (Al Ain) Therdsak Chaiman (BEC Tero Sasana) 3 Patrick Suffo (Al-Hilal) Farhad Majidi (Al Ain) Ali Samereh (Esteghlal) Anvarjon Soliev (Pakhtakor) Kim Dae-eui (Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma) Kim Do-hoon (Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma) Saul Martínez (Shanghai Shenhua) Ahn Jung-hwan (Shimizu S-Pulse)