MOGAMAD ALLIE: Questions still abound about African Football League

When the Africa Soccer League, since renamed the African Football League (AFL), was launched amid much hype in the historic Tanzanian city of Arusha last August there were always lingering questions about its viability and feasibility. Is this new competition even necessary?

Instead of being authoritatively put to bed the questions and doubts continue to linger at a time when a tournament, punted as being the launching pad to take African football to new levels, got off to a whimpering start over the past weekend. 

Ask most football fans around the country about the results of the first-leg games in the quarterfinal round that was played across the continent and you’d be hard-pressed to find many who even knew the competition had kicked off. Siya Kolisi’s Springboks should perhaps take some blame for hogging the attention of a spellbound nation that’s now in the grip of rugby fever.

So Mamelodi Sundowns chalked up a convincing 2-0 away win over Petro Luanda, Egyptian giants Al Ahly got a handy 2-2 draw at Tanzania’s Simba, Nigeria’s Enyimba, featuring defender Innocent Gabriel Okey with a handwritten No 3 on the back of his shirt, suffered a 1-0 home defeat at the hands of Wydad Casablanca while the Democratic Republic of Congo’s TP Mazembe take a narrow 1-0 into their second leg against Tunisia’s Esperance.   

The red lights flickering around the new competition are obvious. The organisers have backtracked significantly from the original plans that were outlined amid the fanfare at 2022’s launch. What was slated as a 24-team competition scheduled to run over 10 months between from to May has started off as a three-week blitz between October 20 and November 11 for eight teams. 

The original prize money has also been scaled down dramatically as the organisers battle to secure big sponsors. Saudi Arabia’s tourism authority, Visit Saudi, came on board two weeks ago as head sponsor while a few others are set to be unveiled shortly. The eventual winners will now pocket a handy $4m (R75.7m) instead of the whopping $11m (R208m) that was initially promised

The three weeks of fixtures have affected the Premier Soccer League’s (PSL) schedule that has already been congested by the six-week break for the Africa Cup of Nations that runs between January 13 and February 11.

In a sign of what still lies ahead, Sundowns’ Carling Knockout Cup first round tie against TS Galaxy had to be brought forward to last Wednesday, leaving coach Rulani Mokwena bemoaning that they had to play a day after Bafana faced the Ivory Coast in Abidjan.

The timing of the fixture left Sundowns without eight regulars as TS Galaxy advanced to the second round via a penalty shoot-out. Egypt’s Al Ahly had a similar complaint when they played Simba on Friday night.

“The dates of the AFL fixtures are not suitable. The international players, whether Egyptians or other nationalities, will suffer because of the dense schedule,” Al Ahly coach Marcel Koller told the club’s TV channel. 

“They did not consider the hard travelling circumstances that face international players as moving inside Africa takes long hours.”

Should Sundowns get past Petro Luanda, as seems almost certain, they are likely to face Al Ahly in the semifinals on Sunday and next Wednesday. Should they get to the final they will be on continental duty once again November 5 and November 11. This could mean the possible rescheduling of their Premiership fixtures against Moroka Swallows and AmaZulu on October 29 and November 8.

This, of course, is in addition to the likely rescheduling of fixtures should Masandawana go deep into the Champions League in 2024.

The question many are asking is why load the players and fans with another competition? The Champions League has always been the premier competition for club football in Africa and will still be despite the introduction of the AFL.

It is perplexing why Caf has instead not strengthened the prestige and increased the prize money of the Champions League instead. Why is it necessary to start a new tournament for three weeks that involves all the teams playing in the Champions League anyway?

The PSL clubs rightly had misgivings about sanctioning Sundowns’ participation in the AFL, saying that they were informed about the start of the competition only a month ago.

But of course, their arms were gently tugged probably when reminded that the second-tier competition is known as the Motsepe Foundation Championship for a reason and it’s the very same foundation whose largesse spared Safa the major embarrassment of a strike by the Banyana Banyana players just before their departure to the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The AFL is of course backed by Caf president Patrice Motsepe and his Fifa counterpart Gianni Infantino.

There is clearly lots of work to be done to make the AFL the success that Motsepe and Infantino hope it will be. The start has hardly been promising but let’s wait and see.