This year's Champions Cup, a one-match event which has long served as the curtain-raiser to the new domestic season, has been cancelled, the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) announced on Tuesday.
The cancellation of the event was rubber-stamped at an executive meeting of the FAT, which was chaired by the association's new president Nualphan Lamsam on Tuesday.
This year's Champions Cup was scheduled to pit reigning Thai League 1 champions Buriram United against first-time FA Cup winners Bangkok United on Aug 3.
Rumours that the traditional event was likely to be axed from the FAT sports calendar had been doing the rounds on social media for a few days as the organisers had failed to confirm their plans for the match with less than a month remaining.
The Champions Cup, which started in 2017, is a single-game competition between the winners of the previous season's Thai League 1 and the Thai FA Cup. In case, the top-league winners and the FA Cup champions are the same club then the Thai League 1 runners-up take part in the match.
In last year's match, 2022-2023 Thai League 1 runners-up Bangkok United shocked champions Buriram United 2-0 at Bangkok's Rajamangala National Stadium.
Meanwhile, the FAT has also an- nounced that it will host the seventh edition of the FA Thailand Awards 2023-2024 on July 24.
Winners of 30 different categories, headlined by the men's and women's players of the year awards, will be rewarded amidst fanfare and pageantry at the event.
The venue for this year's King's Cup event will also be announced at the awards. Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Songkhla are bidding to host the four-nation tournament.