CAF Champions League

Established in 1964 as the African Cup of Champions Clubs, the first team to lift the trophy was Cameroonian team Oryx Douala who beat Stade Malien of Mali 2–1 in a one-off final.[2]

The 1965 edition wasn't played, but the third edition in 1966 introduced the two-legged 'home and away' final, which saw another Malian team AS Real Bamako take on Stade d'Abidjan of Ivory Coast. Real 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.[3]

In 1967 when Asante Kotoko of Ghana met TP Mazembe of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (or the DRC for short), both matches ended in draws (1–1 and 2–2 respectively). CAF arranged a play-off, but Kotoko failed to appear[4] and the title was handed to Mazembe, who went on to win the title again the following year.[5]

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.[6]

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 teams won the cup four times, with Canon Yaoundé taking three titles (1971,[7] 1978[8] and 1980[9]) and US 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 Conakry, who won it three times during this period (1972,[10] 1975[11] and 1977[12])

Apart from the introduction of the away goals rule, very little changed in this competition until 1997, when CAF under Issa Hayatou took the bold step to follow the lead established a few years earlier by UEFA by creating a league/group stage in the tournament and changing the name to the CAF Champions League (in line with UEFA's own Champions League). CAF also introduced prize money for participants for the first time with the initial offering of US$1 million to the winners and US$750,000 to the runners-up, making the rebranded competition the richest African club competition at the time.

In the new format, the league champions of the respective CAF member countries go through a series of qualification rounds until a round of 16 stage. The 8 winners are then drawn into two groups 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 team in each group met in the final, in two-legged games (home and away).

In the 2001 season, the CAF introduced the semi-final stage after group stage, then the top two teams in each group would meet in the semi-finals, with the winners going through to contest the final.

Beginning with the 2009 season, the prize money increased to $1.5 million for the champions and $1 million for the runner-ups. Since the competition rebranded in 1997, teams from North Africa have come to dominate the competition and its records. Morocco's Raja Casablanca won two of the first three editions,[13] but Al Ahly became the most successful team, winning the 2001,[14] 2005,[15] 2006,[16] 2008[17] and 2012 editions,[18] while Zamalek managed to be champions in 2002.[19] Tunisian teams broke into the winners' circle with Étoile du Sahel winning the 2007 edition after being a losing finalist in 2004 and 2005.[20] For its part, Espérance de Tunis achieved its second continental title in 2011 after having lost in the finals in the 1999, 2000, 2010 and 2012 editions.[21]

Despite the clear dominance of North African teams, Nigerian club Enyimba won their first two titles back-to-back in 2003 and 2004.[22][23] ASEC Mimosas from Ivory Coast and Accra Hearts of Oak from Ghana added two championships for West Africa. In 2010, TP Mazembe from the DRC became the first club to repeat as champions on two occasions, with the first pair of wins arriving in 1967 and 1968,[24][25] before repeating the feat again in 2009 and 2010.[26][27] In 2017, the group phase was expanded from 2 groups of 4 teams to 4 groups of 16, with the automatic addition of the quarter-finals stage.[28][29][30]

The 2020–21 season was played behind closed doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa in line with global football leagues and competitions. Nevertheless, Al Ahly faced bitter rivals Zamalek in an-all Egyptian final (the first time two clubs from the same country compete in any final in the competition's history),[31] with the former emerging victorious and winning its ninth title.[32] Al Ahly successfully defended their title for a record-extending 10th time the following season by beating 10-men Kaizer Chiefs of South Africa,[33] but were unable to secure a 3rd consecutive title in a row and 11th title in 2022 as they were defeated 2–0 by Moroccan club Wydad AC who instead captured their 3rd title.[34] With a return to two-legged finals after a 24-month hiatus owing to the pandemic, Al Ahly roared back, got their revenge the following season and wrestled the title back from Wydad, thus claiming their 11th title in 2023 with a 3–2 aggregate win thanks to foward Mohamed Abdelmoneim's tie-breaking goal[35] and successfully defended it for the second time in the space of half a decade (5 years) in 2024 for a record extending 12th title with a 1–0 aggregate win over Tunisia's Esperance.[36]

With the introduction of the Africa Football League in the 2023–24 season, CAF plans to keep the Champions League, as the new competition will not be its replacement.[37] However, media reports speculate that CAF could potentially eliminate the group phase and have the competition exclusively made up of two-legged knockout matchups, as per the original format of the African Cup of Champions Clubs era from 1964 to 1996.[38]

The CAF Champions League is open to the winners of all CAF-affiliated national leagues, as well as the title holders from the previous season. From the 2004 season onward, with the merging of the CAF Cup and the African Cup Winners' Cup to create the second-tier CAF Confederation Cup, the runners-up of football leagues of the 12 highest-ranked countries also enter the tournament, making up a total of 64 in-competition teams. The 12 countries would be ranked based on the performance of their clubs in the previous 5 seasons/editions of the competition (the plain definition of the CAF 5-year ranking).[39]

The number of teams that each association enters into the CAF Champions League is determined annually through criteria as set by the CAF Competitions Committee.[40][41] The higher an association's ranking as determined by the criteria, the more teams represent the association in the Champions League, and the fewer qualification rounds the association's teams must compete in.

The CAF Champions League operates primarily as a knockout competition, with trim-down qualification rounds, a group stage, a two-legged knockout stage and a one-off final. At the start of the competition, the 64 qualified teams enter 2 qualification rounds: the preliminary stage and the first round. After the first qualifying round, the remaining teams are split into four groups of 4, whereas the teams each first-round winner vanquished transfer to the second qualification round of the Confederation Cup for hopes of group stage progression. The winners and runners-up of each group progress to the two-legged knockout stage for hopes of progression to a one-off final for a chance to lift the trophy for their member association.

Each year, the winning team is presented with the CAF Champions League, the current version of which has been awarded since the competition name change in 1997. Forty gold medals are presented to the competition winners and 40 silver medals to the runners-up.

Following the competition rebranding to its current name in 1997, CAF introduced prize money for the eight participants in group stage for the first time in an African club football competition. This first tranche lasted until 2008.

CAF increased prize money to be shared between the group stage clubs, which was 8 at the time, as follows:[56]

This third tranche of the prize money from CAF showed an increase to be shared between the group stage clubs, which increased to 16 from 2017 to date, as follows:[57][58][59][60]

* Note: National Associations receive an additional equivalent share of 5% for each amount awarded to clubs.

On 19 May 2023, CAF announced an increase in the prize money to be shared between the 16 group stage clubs, which is the latest tranche, as follows:[61]

• As of 22 May 2023. All matches including qualifying were taken into account with a game decided by penalties counted as draw. No awarded/withdrawn games were counted.

* Number in parentheses show number of participations.