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The African Football League (AFL) is a continental men's club football competition organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). It was announced on 28 November 2019 by Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA and it was initially launched as the Africa Super League on 10 August 2022 in Tanzania and was to include twenty-four elite African clubs with a promotion and relegation system, but is scaled down to eight teams for its inaugural edition in 2023 that won by Mamelodi Sundowns.
History
Gianni Infantino launched the tournament during a visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to celebrate the 80th anniversary of TP Mazembe, saying the top 20 clubs in Africa should be chosen and made to participate in an African league. Infantino said this league would generate revenues of $100 million, making it among the top ten leagues in the world, and revealed that he was launching an appeal to raise $1 billion in order to give every African country a football stadium that complies with the specifications of FIFA. On 17 July 2021, the President of CAF, Patrice Motsepe, confirmed the move to implement the African Super League project as a new tournament ran under the umbrella of CAF, with large financial returns for the sides taking part. The Confederation of African Football launched the competition on 10 August 2022 in Arusha, Tanzania, where more information about the competition was released.
CAF initially wanted to start the competition in August 2023, with reports suggest that 24 clubs would feature in three groups of eight teams, ahead of a knockout stage starting at the Round of 16. These teams would have been taken from the best-ranked African clubs over the past few years, with groups played on a regional basis (North, Central/West, South/East). As part of the club licensing criteria, participating clubs would be required to have a youth academy and a women's team.
On 9 June, the president of CAF, Patrice Motsepe, announced the decision to change the name of the African Super League to the African Football League during an interview with beIN Sport. saying "Our friends in Europe advised us not to use the expression Super League due to the negative associations with the recent failed attempt in European football." On 13 June 2023, during that year's CAF General Assembly in Abidjan, Infantino announced that the competition would be scaled back to 8 teams for the inaugural edition and would now kick off on 20 October 2023, which would be followed by an expanded tournament further down the line. The Africa Football League would also not replace CAF's top club competition, the CAF Champions League. On 29 August 2023, the competition format for the inaugural edition was announced, with the previous format announced to be adopted starting in 2024–25. On 20 October 2023, the president of CAF, Patrice Motsepe, unveiled the African football league trophy. CAF is planning to bring the competition back on 2025 when scheduling issues for the second edition were encountered in 2024.
Format
The initial details of the format were announced during the launch ceremony in 2022:
The competition would have 24 teams divided into three regionalized groups (North, Central/West, South/East), for eight teams per group, and there would be a maximum of three teams per country.
The teams would have been from 16 countries, representing approximately 1 billion people.
The competition would have 197 matches (with a maximum of 21 matches played by the finalists) and promotion/relegation play-offs.
The final would have been played in a single match, with the final designed to become "the Super Bowl of Africa".
The 2023 edition was contested as an eight-team knockout competition, with two-legged quarter-final, semi-final and final rounds. The previously announced format will be used starting with the 2024–25 campaign.
Money distribution
The prize money for the first season has been announced in September 2023 and is as follows:
The project has been subjected to criticism for unrealistic expectations of financial returns. The current continental championships in Africa experience weak infrastructure and high travel costs for fans and teams, which will not be automatically resolved by this new competition.
There are already significant financial disputes between the major teams in North Africa, South Africa and the rest of the continent, which would be exacerbated by the new competition. Further, it is also doubtful whether the competition can arouse the public's attention, despite claims to the contrary, while there are concerns about the impact of the new competition on the current Confederation of African Football Championships such as the CAF Champions League (which prize money of the winners is the at the same level as the Africa Football League winners), the CAF Confederation Cup and national leagues.
In this regard, the Confederation of African Football has also been described as a laboratory of experiments, with the acceptance of the proposal to establish the African Super League contrasting with the rejection of the European Super League by UEFA in April 2021.
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Mamelodi Sundowns
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