What is the African Football League?

The African Football League (AFL) will finally kick off on October 20, four years after the idea was mooted.

CAF, the continent's football governing body, selected eight elite teams from across the continent. Initially slated to be called the African Super League, before CAF changed its name after a suggestion by European governing body UEFA to avoid the negative connotation associated with the failed attempt by some clubs to establish a European Super League in 2021.

"Our friends in Europe advised us not to use the expression 'super league,'" CAF president Patrice Motsepe said. "This advice was based on the negative associations with the failed attempt in 2021 to launch a super league in Europe."

The idea of a new pan-African club competition was first introduced by FIFA president Gianni Infantino in 2019 during a visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo. But, it was not until 2022 that the full vision was announced at a CAF general assembly in Tanzania where Motsepe stated that 24 teams would be selected to play for a total of $100 million in prize money, with the winners taking $11.5m.

But those grand ambitions were watered down by the reality of unwilling sponsors. Hence, only eight teams will now begin the inaugural competition with the hope of growing it to its original two dozen participants in 2024. The prize is $4m for the winners and $3m for the runners-up. The four quarter-finalists will receive $1m and the semi-finalists $1.7m each.

Visit Saudi steps in at last minute

However, with just over a week to go before the opening kickoff, CAF announced that it had secured Visit Saudi as the main sponsor of the inaugural African Football League. Football's global governing body had lined up Saudi Arabia's tourism authority as a potential sponsor for this year's Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. However, in the face of a huge backlash from local organizers and players across the globe due to Saudi Arabia's human rights record,FIFA wound up dropping the idea.

A CAF statement announcing the deal described it as a "significant milestone for African football and Saudi tourism," however it did not reveal how much it was worth in financial terms.

Which teams will play in the AFL?

Leading teams from the continent have been selected to play in the inaugural tournament. They are Al Ahly (Egypt), Enyimba FC (Nigeria), Espérance Tunis (Tunisia), Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa), Petro Atletico de Luanda (Angola), Simba SC (Tanzania), TP Mazembe (DR Congo) and Wydad Casablanca (Morocco).

The competition will be played on a home and away basis, with the first round as the quarter-finals.

The AFL will run alongside the CAF Champions League, the tournament for the winners of each of the continent's domestic leagues. All the teams in the AFL have been involved in this year's Champions League. Last season's CAFCL winner Al Ahly received $4 million as winning prize. The idea behind the AFL is to provide more money to clubs and national associations to develop local infrastructure.

What are the controversies?

However, while CAF hopes to make more money available to domestic clubs and make them more prestigious, it has yet to attract the caliber of sponsors that would bankroll its original ideas. This is why the winning prizes have been drastically cut.

While it is a CAF competition, FIFA has representation on the AFL board that has been constituted as a private company based in Kigali, Rwanda. The competition is seen as part of the huge influence of Infantino in African football, a few years after he seconded his General Secretary Fatma Samoura to manage the CAF's Cairo headquarters following allegations of corruption and mismanagement against former CAF head Ahmad Ahmad.

Furthermore, South African representatives Mamelodi Sundowns had been at risk of failing to participate because their domestic league voted against it. The Board of Governors of the Premier Soccer League (PSL) said that the AFL would disrupt its local calendar as CAF failed to communicate the new competition early enough. However, CAF and the PSL have since resolved the matter, clearing the path for Mamelodi Sundowns to take part. 

Angola's Petro Atletico de Luanda were also recently suspended by the country's football governing body for two years over match-fixing allegations. Despite the club denying these allegations, it remains to be seen if they will be allowed to play in the AFL.

CAF hopes that the AFL will become a tournament that can capture the imagination of fans in and outside of Africa. The next few weeks will determine if they can achieve this.

The final, also to be played over two legs, is scheduled for November 5 and 11.

Edited by: Matt Ford

Update, October 17, 2023: On Friday, October 13, the PSL's Board of Governors agreed that it will not stand in the way of Mamelodi Sundowns playing in the inaugural AFL.