2026 MFL Challenge Cup

2026 MFL Challenge Cup
Piala Cabaran MFL 2026
Tournament details
Country	Malaysia
Date	6 February 2026 – 18 April 2026
Teams	8
Defending champions	Selangor
	← 2024–25 2027 →; All statistics correct as of 15 January 2026.

Last updated January 24, 2026

The 2026 MFL Challenge Cup is the fifth edition of Malaysia Challenge Cup tournament organised by Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) and Malaysian Football League (MFL). The tournament began on 6 February 2026 and ended on 18 April 2026.

Qualifying rounds

A total of 8 teams competed in the knockout phase, which the eight losers of the Malaysia Cup round of 16 will participate into the tournament.^[3]

The qualified teams will compete on the knockout stage to compete in a two-legged single-elimination tournament beginning with the quarter-finals followed by semi-finals and the final. Each tie is played on a home-and-away two-legged basis. The away goals rule, extra time and penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner if necessary.

Teams

All 8 teams eliminated from the Malaysia Cup round of 16 will enter the tournament.^[3] List of the teams are shown below:

Key to colours
Losers of round of 16 enter 2026 MFL Challenge Cup

Malaysia Cup Round of 16
Team
Kelantan The Real Warriors
Sabah
UM-Damansara United
To be determined
To be determined
To be determined
To be determined
To be determined

Format

Each tie in the knockout phase was played over two legs, with each team playing one leg at home. The team that scored more goals on aggregate over the two legs advanced to the next round. If the aggregate score was level, then 30 minutes of extra time was played (the away goals rule was not applied). If the score was still level at the end of extra time, the winners were decided by a penalty shoot-out. In the final, which was played as a single match, if the score was level at the end of normal time, extra time was played, followed by a penalty shoot-out if the score was still level. The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:

In the draws for the quarter-finals onwards, there were no seedings, and teams from the same association could be drawn against each other. As the draws for the quarter-finals and semi-finals were held together before the quarter-finals were played, the identity of the quarter-final winners was not known at the time of the semi-final draw. A draw was also held to determine which semi-final winner would be designated as the "home" team for the final (for administrative purposes as it was played at a neutral venue).

Schedule

The schedule was as follows (all draws were held at the Malaysian Football League headquarters in Petaling Jaya, Selangor).^[4]

Round	First leg	Second leg
Quarter-finals	6–7 February 2026	14–15 February 2026
Semi-finals	4 March 2026	11 March 2026
Final	4 April 2026	18 April 2026

Knockout-stage

Bracket

In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis.

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Quarter-finals

The first legs were played on 6 and 7 February, and the second legs were played on 14 and 15 February 2026.

Team 1	Agg. Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
To be determined	–	To be determined	6 Feb	14 Feb
To be determined	–	To be determined	6 Feb	14 Feb
To be determined	–	To be determined	7 Feb	15 Feb
To be determined	–	To be determined	7 Feb	15 Feb

Matches

First leg

6 February 2026