Cape Town — CAF President Patrice Motsepe on Monday confirmed that the new African Super League will be launched in August and will kick off in August 2023 with prize money of $100 million (R1 630 300 000,00).
As a result, the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations Cote d’Ivoire 2023 moved from June/July 2023 to January 2024 because of the rainy weather conditions in June/July.
Motsepe said that the Executive Committee has resolved that the African Super League will kick off in August 2023 and will be launched in Tanzania in August 2022.
Details, including the official name, will be unveiled at the launch event.
The competition will breathe new life into the African club competition. Winners and participants of the inaugural African Super League will receive significant prize monies and the proceeds from the tournament will include substantial solidarity payments to all 54 CAF Member Associations.
During last year’s Extraordinary General Assembly in Egypt, the 54 Member Associations unanimously voted to go ahead with the competition and gave a mandate to the President and the Executive Committee to lead the implementation of the competition.
Motsepe said: “The decision has now been taken to implement the CAF Super League. It will start in August 2023, and we will launch it during CAF’s 44th Ordinary Assembly in Tanzania on August 10.
"We have been inundated with investors and sponsors, who are anxious to partner with us on the CAF Super League. It has huge potential to significantly uplift African football and to make it even more powerful.”
FIFA President, Gianni Infantino, attended the CAF Executive Committee meeting. Motsepe thanked the FIFA President for his support of the establishment of the African Super League.
“We will be engaging with stakeholders over the next few weeks to discuss the mechanics of the tournament and will release further details shortly.
"A significant amount of the money from the CAF Super League will be invested back into African football and part of the process involves giving $1 million every year to every one of CAF’s 54 Member Associations as a contribution to football and youth development.
"We also want to look to increase the prize money for the men’s and women’s CAF Champions Leagues,” said Motsepe.
The Executive Committee has decided that the Africa Cup of Nations in Côte d’Ivoire will be postponed to the months of January and February 2024.
Initially scheduled from 23 June to 23 July 2023, Motsepe said the postponement is a direct and sole result of the adverse weather conditions in the country and after also having received further technical opinion from experts on the adverse effects of staging the matches in that period.
June and July are rainy seasons in Côte d’Ivoire.
The CAF President announced that going forward the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League final will now be played over two legs.
With the two clubs who are current title holders of the TotalEnergies Champions League (Wydad AC) and TotalEnergies Confederation Cup (RS Berkane) both coming from the same country, Morocco, the Executive Committee approved the recommendation by the CAF Interclub Committee to play the TotalEnergies CAF Super Cup 2022 final in Morocco.
With regards to TotalEnergies Beach Soccer Africa Cup of Nations 2024, CAF received two bids from Egypt and Morocco for the Beach Soccer Africa Cup of Nations 2024. The Executive Committee resolved to award Egypt the rights to host the Beach Soccer Africa Cup of Nations 2024.
IOL Sport