It began on 11 October 2008 with the first round and concluded on 29 March 2009 with the final which was held at Dasaki Stadium.
In the first and in the second round each tie was played as a single leg and was held at the home ground of one of the two teams, according to the draw results.
If both teams had scored the same number of home and away goals, then extra time was following after the end of the second leg match.
If there weren't scored any goals during extra time, the qualifying team was determined by penalty shoot-out.
13 out of the 19 teams were drawn to qualify directly to the second round, without needing to play any match.