The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has released the final schedule for all continental competitions set to take place during the 2020/2021 season.
The current season of CAF Interclubs competitions is yet to be concluded as the semi-finals and finals of the Champions League and Confederation Cup are set to take place at the end of September.
However, CAF has decided to release the calendar for next season while explaining to its Member Associations (MAs) which of their teams will be allowed to participate in the upcoming editions.
CAF revealed their new guidelines in a statement on their official website, which were as follows:
- MAs that completed the 2019/20 season, the engaged teams shall be the teams qualified from their national competitions for 2019/20.
- MAs that did not complete the 2019/20 season but set criteria to classify the teams or homologate the standings in the national competitions for 2019/20, the engaged teams shall be the teams qualified from the national competitions 2019/20.
- MAs that could not complete the 2019/20 season and considered the season canceled, the engaged teams will be the same representatives for the 2019/20 Interclubs season taking into consideration the quota of each association according to their ranking.
- MAs yet to complete their season or unable to finish before the engagement deadline, they will be requested to choose one of the above-mentioned criteria to determine their representative(s) subject to the approval of CAF.
Also in the statement, CAF unveiled the ranking of the top Member Associations, based on how their representatives performed in club competitions over the past five years.
Morocco top the ranking with 180 points followed by Egypt (147) and Tunisia (140). The remainder of the 12-country list included DR Congo, Algeria, South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria, Guinea, Angola, Sudan and Lybia respectively. These countries will be allowed to present two representatives in both CAF club competitions. However, all participating teams must respect the Club Licensing procedure and cooperate with their respective Associations, as non-licensed clubs will be refused participation.
Registration for the club tournaments open on October 21st and will run through November 19th. The first leg of the preliminary rounds will kick-off on November 20th until the 22nd, with the second leg taking place a week later.
The group stages will commence in mid-February and the draw for knockout phase will take place at the end of April, with matches set to begin in mid-May. The final of the Confederations Cup will take place on 10 July 2021 while the Champions League will hold a week later on 17 July 2021.
In July 2019 CAF president Ahmad Ahmad announced via his Twitter account the final for the tournaments will now be settled in one game, which will be held in neutral venues.
In the full calendar, CAF included the dates for many other tournaments such as the 2021 African Nations Championships (CHAN) and the U-20 AFCON. The CHAN will be held in Cameroon from 16 January to 7 February 2021 while the U-20 tournament to be hosted by Mauritania, will take place from 16 February-4 March 2021.
