Cape Town, South Africa – The inaugural season of the African Football League kicks off on Friday with Tanzania’s Simba SC hosting Egypt’s Al Ahly in the first leg of their quarterfinal.
The new continental club competition – spearheaded by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and the sport’s global governing body, FIFA – was originally supposed to feature Africa’s 24 best clubs in a mini-league and then knockout format.
But numerous complications have seen the number of teams cut to eight in a knockout format in its first year: the other teams are Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa), Petro de Luanda (Angola), TP Mazembe (DRC), Es Tunis (Tunisia), Enyimba International (Nigeria) and Wydad Casablanca (Morocco).
Teething problems
While FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Motsepe’s grand dream hasn’t materialised just yet, the fact that the AFL is going ahead at all must be a relief to both men.
Earlier this month the Premier Soccer League’s board voted unanimously against Mamelodi Sundowns’ participation, citing fixture congestion – although the decision was unanimously reversed at an emergency meeting on October 13, with no official reason given.
Meanwhile, the issue of TV rights for African football is an unresolved snag. Pending a broadcast deal, all AFL games will be aired on YouTube.
While this might seem like a boon for accessibility, Ngidi says it is exactly the opposite. Of the 43 percent of Africans who have access to the internet, the vast majority do so via expensive mobile data connections. If and when a broadcasting deal is reached, it’s highly likely the AFL will not be free-to-air.
Peter du Toit, founder of the This is Football.Africa podcast, is not surprised that the new tournament has come up against so many headwinds.
“People like what they know and are wary of what they don’t know,” he said, giving the example of “the biggest tournament the world has ever known,” – the World Cup.
“When the first tournament happened in Uruguay in 1930 only eight teams accepted the invitation to attend. And look at it now.”
A similar thing happened when the expanded UEFA Champions League format replaced the European Cup, he adds.
“The chances of getting all the top [24] clubs to come on board at the same time was a fantasy. And it may have been a disaster,” he said, adding that it’s not a good idea to look too far ahead.
“We need to see the standard of the soccer, the TV figures,” he said. “The second year will be the real test.”
Financially, at least, signs are improving. Last week, the Saudi Arabian tourism board, Visit Saudi, came on board as the new competition’s main sponsor of the AFL. And several other high-profile sponsors have signed on in the last week.
If the AFL is still going strong in a few years, there’s a real possibility, Du Toit says, that stars such as Egypt and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah or Senegal and Bayern Munich’s Sadio Mane could finish their careers in Africa.
“This, in turn, will attract even more viewers and sponsors,” he said.
Ngidi says it’s essential that AFL revenues are shared fairly with the smaller leagues and clubs.
“In the initial media statement [CAF] said that each member association will get some money. But they didn’t say how much.”
When Al Jazeera put these concerns to Luxolo September, Acting Director of Communications for CAF, he said: “The AFL will not only benefit Africa’s strongest clubs, the distribution of money generated by the AFL will go to all 54 CAF members and local leagues to improve football development in those countries.”
The devil, of course, is in the details. And there’s also the risk that the associations might squander the funding.
“It would be great if money was ring-fenced for specific projects,” Ngidi stressed. “They need to say, ‘you can only do xyz with the money’.”
To this end, September says that one of the objectives of the AFL is “contributing to the building of youth academies for boys and girls and football infrastructure in the 54 countries that are represented by CAF’s member associations”.
Du Toit hopes that initiatives like this become a reality.
“We’ve got to make sure that local leagues don’t become secondary,” he said.
“Professionalisation of African soccer is going to happen, but it needs to happen in the right way. Progress needs to have a trickle-down effect.”
Meanwhile, if the AFL does take off, the CAF Champions League also faces a rocky road.
The existing flagship continental competition features 68 teams from all 54 African associations in the first round. With qualification for the AFL being based solely on rankings points, countries like Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and South Africa will likely have more than one representative in an expanded AFL, reducing opportunities for teams from smaller, less competitive leagues.
“There are some positives [to the AFL], and it’s definitely the way the game is going,” Ngidi said.
“But it needs to be done in a way that doesn’t simply make the rich get richer. I really worry that it will only deepen the inequality in African soccer.”
September, meanwhile, says the AFL is all about ensuring that “African football retains its best football talent on the African continent and continues to ensure the long-term success, strength and sustainability of African club football.”"
- Al Jazeera
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