The CAF Women’s Champions League will continue with its eight-team final format.
The fourth edition of the tournament will begin tomorrow.
The African Football Confederation (CAF) stated that applying the men’s CAF Champions League format to the women’s tournament is quite challenging, primarily due to financial reasons.
In the men’s CAF Champions League, six group-stage matches are played, followed by two-legged knockout ties from the quarter-finals onwards. CAF Women’s Football Director Meske Goshime explained that implementing this format for the women’s competition is difficult:
“We cannot afford home and away matches,” Goshime said.
“Our clubs are not financially strong [enough] to travel three or four times and play home and away.”
“Travelling in Africa is not really easy – you have to catch flights, sometimes traveling for 24 hours.”
“Zonal qualifiers will continue for some time,” she added.
“We want more member associations engaging in the qualifiers before we can push it forward and say that we need a 12-team or 16-team final.”
According to Goshime, CAF’s priority is to improve the quality of domestic leagues. Despite this, five new teams will participate in the CAF Women’s Champions League for the first time.
The prize money has increased by 52%, and the winning team of the final will receive a $600,000 prize.
