CAF Champions League

infobox football tournament
current = 2008 CAF Champions League

founded = 1964
region = Africa (CAF)
number of teams = 8 (Group stage)
52 (Total)
current champions = flagicon|TUN Étoile Sahel
most successful club = flagicon|Egypt El Ahly (5)
flagicon|Egypt Al-Zamalek(5)
broadcasters =
website = [http://www.cafonline.com/index.php?lng=1&module=accueil&cmpt=15 cafonline.com] The CAF Champions League is an annual international club football competition run by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). The top club sides from Africa's football leagues are invited to participate in this competition, which is the premier club football competition on the continent and the equivalent to the UEFA Champions League. Due to sponsorship reasons, the official name is MTN CAF Champions League, with MTN Champions League also in use.

History

Initially, the competition saw the league champions of each national league existing under the jurisdiction of the CAF coming together over a 12 month period of home and away knock-out fixtures until the quarter-final, semi-final and final stage was reached for the winning team to be declared the African champion of champions.

Starting life as the African Champions Cup in 1964, the first team to lift the trophy was Cameroonian side Oryx Douala, who beat Stade Malien of Mali 2-1 in a one-off final.

There was no tournament held the following year but the action resumed again in 1966, when the two-legged ‘home and away’ final was introduced, which saw another Malian team AS Real Bamako take on Stade Abidjan of the Cote d'Ivoire. Bamako won the home leg 3-1 but it all came apart for them in the away game in Abidjan as the Ivorians went on to win 4-1 to take the title 5-4 on aggregate.

Drama followed in 1967 when Ghana’s Asante Kotoko met the DRC’s TP Mazembe, with both matches ending in draws (1-1 and 2-2 respectively). CAF suggested a play-off to resolve the impasse but the Ghanaian refused and the title was eventually handed to Mazembe. Just to prove they were deserving winners, TP Mazembe went on to win the title again the following year.

However, the Ghanaians got their revenge in 1970, when Kotoko and Mazembe once again met in the final. Once again, the first game ended 1-1 but against expectation the Ghanaians ran out 2-1 winners in their away game to lift the title that had eluded them three years earlier.

The 1970s saw a remarkable rise in the fortunes of Cameroonian club football, which created the platform of success enjoyed by Cameroonian football at international level today.

Between 1971 and 1980 Cameroonian team won the cup four times, with Canon Yaounde taking three titles (1971, 1978 and 1980) and Union Douala lifting the cup in 1979. In between the Cameroonian victories the honor was shared with another team enjoying a golden age, Guinean side Hafia, who won it three times during this period (1972, 1975 and 1977).

Since the ‘80s, it has been the North African teams that have dominated, particularly Egyptian teams and Cairo arch-rivals, Zamalek and Al Ahly. It is significant that only one Egyptian team (Ismaili) had ever one the trophy between 1964 and 1982, when Al Ahly won it for the first time.

Since then, the Cairo ‘Reds’ have won it on four other occasions (1987, 2001, 2005 and 2006) while the Cairo ‘Whites Knights’ were the first to set the record for Champions Cup victories, taking the honours on no less than five occasions – in 1984, 1986, 1993, 1996 and 2002.

The other North African team that has made a big impression in this tournament is Morocco’s Raja Casablanca, who emerged victorious three times – in 1989, 1997 and 1999.

Apart from the introduction of the away goals rule (in which a goal scored by the team playing ‘away’ counts as double n the event of a tie in the aggregate score line over the two legs), very little changed in this competition until 1997.

In this year, CAF took the bold step to follow the lead established a few years earlier in UEFA by creating a league stage in the tournament and changing the name to the CAF Champions League. CAF also introduced prize money for participants for the first time.

With a purse of US$ 1 million on offer to the winners and US$ 750 000.00 to the losing finalist, the new Champions League had become far and away the richest club competition in Africa. In the new format, the league champions of the respective CAF member countries went through a series of preliminary rounds until a last 16 stage.

The 8 winners of this round were then drawn into two mini-leagues of 4 teams each, with each team playing each other on a home and away basis. At the end of the league stage, the top two teams in each group meet in the semifinals, with the winners going through to contest the finals.

Undoubtedly, this format change has proved to be a big winner for both CAF and African football with the tournament now enjoying more sponsorship and greater TV coverage across the continent.

List of winners

5 Wins

flagicon|Egypt Al Ahly
flagicon|Egypt El Zamalek

3 Wins

flagicon|Cameroon Canon Yaoundé

flagicon|Guinea Hafia Conakry

flagicon|Morocco Raja Casablanca

2 Wins

flagicon|Ghana Asante Kotoko

flagicon|Nigeria Enyimba

flagicon|Algeria JS Kabylie

1 Win

flagicon|Morocco Wydad Casablanca

flagicon|Ivory Coast ASEC Abidjan

flagicon|Tunisia Étoile Sahel

flagicon|Tunisia Club Africain

flagicon|Tunisia Espérance Tunis

flagicon|Morocco FAR Rabat

flagicon|Ghana Hearts of Oak

flagicon|Egypt Ismaily

flagicon|Algeria MC Algiers

flagicon|South Africa Orlando Pirates

flagicon|Cameroon Oryx Douala

flagicon|Algeria Entente Plasticiens Sétif

flagicon|Ivory Coast Stade Abidjan

flagicon|Cameroon Union Douala

Challenges facing the competition

Scheduling, structure, and venues are some of the problems in which CAF faces.

Many feel the competition should schedule their fixtures to similar timelines of the UEFA Champions League. African Champions League usually begins around January and finishes around November. Most (but not all) of the African national domestic leagues begin around July, August, or September and finish around April, May, or June. Because not all national domestic leagues begin around the same time, fixtures to this competition are organized poorly. And most national league administrators want to align the African Champions League to their national domestic leagues. The only way to fix this problem is to co-ordinate all national domestic leagues in Africa with African Champions League.

Many national associations want the competition expanded. The stronger national leagues feel the competition would be more profitable and successful by awarding extra spots to their leagues; but it causes differences and disputes between national associations.

As well, many African football stadiums face pitch problems, proper seating, and security. The development of African football can progress quite nicely if funds are put to build new facilities.

tructure and qualification

In 1997 the CAF Champions League replaced the previous pan-African competition, the "African Cup of Champions Clubs"; this had run from 1964-1996 ^{[http://www.sportscheduler.co.sz/caf_champions_league_04.htm]} .

The competition is open to the winners of all CAF-affiliated national leagues, as well as the holder of the competition from the previous season. From the 2004 competition the runner-up of the league of the 12 highest-ranked countries also entered the tournament creating a 64-team field. This was in response to the merging of the CAF Cup, the secondary pan-African club competition where the league runner-ups would previous play, with the CAF Cup Winners' Cup to create the CAF Confederation Cup. The 12 countries would be ranked on the performance of their clubs in the previous 5 years.

The Champions' League operates as a knockout competition, with a final group stage, with each tie (including the final) played over two legs - home and away. There are 3 knockout stages: the preliminary stage, the first round (32 teams) and the second round (16 teams). The 8 teams knocked out of the second round are entered into the Confederation Cup to play against the final 8 teams in that competition. After the second round, the last 8 teams are split into two groups of 4. The winner and runner-up in these groups are sent to play in a semi-final for the chance of contesting the final.

Prize money

In the 2008 season $3.5million in prize money was shared between the top eight clubs and their national associations as follows:

CAF Champions League results

ee also

*International club competition records

References

External links

* [http://www.cafonline.com Website of the Confederation of African Football]
* [http://www.sportscheduler.co.sz/caf_champions_league.htm CAF Champions League results]
* [http://championsleague.mtnfootball.com/live/index.php Official MTN CAF Champions League website]

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