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The African Football League (AFL) will finally kick off on October 20, four years after the idea was mooted.
CAF, the continent’s football governing body, selected eight elite teams from across the continent. Initially slated to be called the African Super League, CAF changed its name after suggestion by European governing body UEFA to avoid the negative connotation associated with the failed attempt by some clubs to establish a European Super League in 2021.
“Our friends in Europe advised us not to use the expression ‘super league,'” said CAF president Patrice Motsepe. “This advice was based on negative associations with the failed attempt in 2021 to launch a super league in Europe.”
The idea of a new pan-African club competition was first introduced by FIFA president Gianni Infantino in 2019 during a visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo. But it was not until 2022 that the full vision was announced at a CAF general assembly in Tanzania where Motsepe stated that 24 teams would be selected to play for a total of $100 million in prize money, with the winners taking $11.5m.
But those grand ambitions have been watered down by the reality of unwilling sponsors. Hence, only eight teams will now begin the inaugural competition with the hope of growing it to its original two dozen participants in 2024. The prize is $4m for the winners and $3m for the runners-up. The four quarter-finalists will receive $1m and the semi-finalists $1.7m each.
Which teams will play in the AFL?
Leading teams from the continent have been selected to play in the inaugural tournament. They are Al Ahly (Egypt), Enyimba FC (Nigeria), Espérance Tunis (Tunisia), Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa), Petro Atletico de Luanda (Angola), Simba SC (Tanzania), TP Mazembe (DR Congo) and Wydad Casablanca (Morocco).
The competition will be played on a home and away basis, with the first round as the quarter-finals.
The AFL will run alongside the CAF Champions League, the tournament for the winners of each of the continent’s domestic leagues. All the teams in the AFL have been involved in this year’s Champions League. Last season’s CAFCL winner Al Ahly received $2 million as winning prize. The idea behind the AFL is to provide more money to clubs and national associations to develop local infrastructure.
What are the controversies?
However, while CAF hopes to make more money available to domestic clubs and make them more prestigious, it has yet to attract the caliber of sponsors that would bankroll its original ideas. This is why the winning prizes have been drastically cut.
While it is a CAF competition, FIFA has representation on the AFL board that has been constituted as a private company based in Kigali, Rwanda. The competition is seen as part of the huge influence of Infantino in African football, a few years after he seconded his General Secretary Fatma Samoura to manage the CAF’s Cairo headquarters following allegations of corruption and mismanagement against former CAF head Ahmad Ahmad.
Furthermore, South African representatives Mamelodi Sundowns risk failing to participate because their domestic league has voted against it. The Board of Governors of the Premier Soccer League said that the AFL would disrupt its local calendar as CAF failed to communicate the new competition early enough.
Angola’s Petro Atletico de Luanda were also recently suspended by the country’s football governing body for two years over match-fixing allegations. Despite the club denying these allegations, it remains to be seen if they will be allowed to play in the AFL.
CAF hopes that the AFL will become a tournament that can capture the imagination of fans in and outside of Africa. The next few weeks will determine if they can achieve this. The final is scheduled for November 5.
CAF’s financial desperation
The finances of the football governing body have been hit after it made losses of $44.6m in 2020/21. In 2019, it canceled a 10-year $1 billion agreement with French media and marketing agency Lagardere Sports, earning it a $50 million fine.
This year, CAF also canceled its $415 million broadcast deal with Qatari company beIN Sports, stating a breach of agreement as the company failed to remit owed funds.
The organization therfore has no broadcast partner with its flagship Africa Cup of Nations starting in about four months.
Edited by Matt Ford
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