Melbourne Victory have the most tournament appearances in the AFC Champions League of any Australian club, with 9 appearances, and the most matches played of any Australian club, with 54 matches played.
For their first five competitions, the A-League was given two spots in the league- one for the champions (grand final winners) and one for the premiers (regular season winners- or the losing grand finalist if the champions and premiers were the same team).
[1] The Premiers (regular season winners) directly qualified for the Asian Champions League.
The Champions (winners of grand final) entered a play off to qualify for the competition.
The AFC ruled that the A-League did not meet the criteria for full participation in the tournament, including the lack of promotion and relegation within a tiered league system was a major reason, and that the A-league was not run as a separate entity to the FFA.