JOHANNESBURG – Next season’s African club competition will begin in September with the group phase kicking off in February and the finals being played in May, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) said.
The schedule for both the Champions League and Confederation Cup will be moved back to its normal timing after this season’s programme had been drastically altered by the Covid-19 pandemic and only got underway late in the year with the finals only being decided next month.
The preliminaries for the 2021-22 competitions start on the weekend of September 10-12.
There are always two rounds of knockout games for the Champions League and three for the Confederation Cup, and will be completed by early December.
The group stage for both competitions starts in February and will be played swiftly over the following eight weeks.
The quarter-finals are on successive weekends in April and semi-finals on successive weekends in May. The dates for the two finals are still to be confirmed but will take place between May 22-29.
CAF has confirmed the countries allowed two representatives in each competition.
They are Egypt, Algeria, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia and Zambia. For Tanzania, it is their first time to be allowed two clubs per competition.
The best 12 ranked countries are determined by how well their clubs do in the two competitions over a five year period, with points awarded but weighted, with more points for recent exploits.
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