The Confederation for African Football (Caf) recently announced plans for a continent-wide Africa Super League. It will kick off with 24 clubs from 16 countries in August 2023.

The new tournament will run annually from August until May, with 197 games in a format much like the European UEFA Champions League. It starts off with the teams grouped in three zones – North Africa, West/Central Africa and East/Southern Africa. The top 16 clubs move into a knockout phase.

The enticement is a projected US$200 million windfall from Caf with 25% of the funds going to the development of women’s and youth football. The rest goes into prize money for participating clubs. The champion club will receive US$11.5 million and all members of Caf will get US$1 million each. This is much bigger than the US$2.5 million received by current winners of the African Champions League club tournament. The African Champions League and the Confederation Cup will continue with entries from all African countries but the format for both competitions will return to the earlier iteration of two-legged elimination contests.

For Caf, which lost an estimated US$45 million in 2020-21, the league is a way to earn big money from television rights. However, Caf provided very few answers to questions about the practical realities of the league when its plans were announced in Tanzania on 10 August.

There are pertinent questions that need clarifying, but even at this early stage it’s clear that there are strengths and weaknesses to the shiny new Africa Super League.

Issues to be clarified
There are at least two major issues that Caf should clarify. The proposed Super League, which runs for the entire football season, involves 24 clubs that will, at the same time, be playing in their national club competitions. Continental competitions often disrupt local leagues. In places like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, clubs sometimes travel by road three times the distance clubs in England travel for league games.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/a-lucrative-new-african-football-league-is-coming-the-pros-and-cons-188826