Stars touring Africa

The stage is set for African Stars to begin their hunt for CAF Champion’s League glory as they await a battle on the Comoros Island. African Stars will play Volcano Club De Moroni FC on 27 November in their Confederations of African Football (CAF) Champions League preliminary first leg match.The ‘Reds’ will be hoping to improve on their form given that they suffered a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Eleven Arrows last week. The club will, however, be comforted by the fact that they managed to beat Life Fighters 1-0 in the opening match of the 2018/19 premier league campaign.“We are ready to give it our all this season as we want to make sure we go far in the competition.“The competition is very important for our players as it will be giving them exposure and experience.“The boys are fired up and ready to take on Africa,” coach Robert Nauseb said. The return leg match between the two teams will take place in Windhoek on 4 or 5 December.The aggregate winner of the preliminary round match will progress to the first round of the Champions League where they will take on the winner between South Africa's Orlando Pirates or Light Stars from the Seychelles, with the first leg of that encounter scheduled for the weekend of 14 December.The winner of the first round encounter will then progress to the lucrative group stages of the competition, where 16 teams will compete in four groups of four each. The top two teams will progress to the quarterfinal knockout stages, while the bottom two teams, although being eliminated, will receive US$550 000 each. The losing quarterfinalists will receive US$650 000 each and the losing semi-finalists, US$800 000 each. The champions will receive US$2.5 million and the runners-up US$1.5 million.About the competitionThe CAF Champions League is an annual continental club football competition run by the Confederation of African Football (CAF).The top club sides from Africa's football leagues are invited to participate in this competition, which is the premier club football competition in the continent and the equivalent to the UEFA Champions League.Due to sponsorship reasons, the official name is Total CAF Champions League, with Total Champions League also in use.The winner of the tournament earns a berth for the FIFA Club World Cup, a tournament contested between the champion clubs from all six continental confederations, and also faces the winner of the CAF Confederation Cup in the following season's CAF Super Cup.Egypt's Al Ahly is the most successful club in the competition's history, having won the tournament eight times. Egyptian clubs have accumulated the highest number of victories, winning the title 14 times.The reigning champions are ES Tunis of Tunisia, who secured their third win in the competition after defeating Al Ahly SC in the 2018 final. Starting life as the 'African Cup of Champions Clubs' in 1964, the first team to lift the trophy was Cameroonian side Oryx Douala, who beat Stade Malien of Mali 2-1 in a one-off final.Developments since 1997Apart from the introduction of the away goals rule (in which the team wins which has scored more goals playing ‘away’ if there is a tie in the aggregate score line over the two legs), very little changed in this competition until 1997.In the new format, the league champions of the respective CAF member countries went through a series of preliminary rounds until a last 16 stage.The eight winners of this round were then drawn into two mini-leagues of teams each, with each team playing each other on a home and away basis. At the end of the league stage, the top two teams in each group meet in the semi-finals, with the winners going through to contest the finals. In 2017, the group phase was expanded from eight to 16 teams and the mini-leagues from two to four and the addition of one extra knock-out round.Structure and qualificationIn 1997 the CAF Champions League replaced the previous pan-African competition, the African Cup of Champions Clubs; this had run from 1964 to 1996.From the 2004, competition the runner-up of the league of the 12 highest-ranked countries also entered the tournament creating a 64-team field.This was in response to the merging of the CAF Cup, the secondary pan-African club competition where the league runners-up would previous play, with the CAF Cup Winners' Cup to create the CAF Confederation Cup.The 12 countries would be ranked on the performance of their clubs in the previous five years.The Champions League operates as a knockout competition, with a final group stage, with each tie (including the final) played over two legs, both home and away.There are two knockout stages: the preliminary stage and the first round (32 teams). The 16 teams knocked out of the first round are entered into the Confederation Cup to play against the final 16 teams in that competition.After the first round, the last 16 teams are split into four groups of four. The winner and runner-up in these groups are sent to play in a quarter-final and the possibility to play semi-finals, in chase of victory, for the chance of contesting the final.SponsorshipIn October 2004, MTN contracted a four-year deal to sponsor African football’s major competitions. This agreement, which is worth US$12.5 million, was the biggest sponsorship deal in African sporting history at the time.In July 2009, Orange signed an eight-year deal to sponsor African football’s major competitions.The terms of the deal were not disclosed but CAF previous year put a value of €100 million for a comprehensive and long-term package of its competitions when it opened tenders for a new sponsor.The deal included the African Nations Cup, the CAF Champions League, the CAF Confederation Cup, the CAF Super Cup, the African Nations Championship and the African Youth Championship.In July 2016, Total replaced Orange and secured an eight-year sponsorship package from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for a value of €950 million to support ten of its principal competitions, including the CAF Champions League, renamed Total CAF Champions League. *Additional information from Wikipedia Jesse Jackson Kauraisa

Stars touring Africa

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-05

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Stars touring Africa

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-05

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