By: Akosua Adjei
It is CAF‘s newest baby but the continent’s 3rd inter club competition. The African Football League, AFL, is a new venture for football fans across the continent to once again fall in love with African football.
The AFL also created an avenue for clubs to win more laurels. With a whooping $4 million up for the taken, only 8 giants made it to the maiden edition.
The tournament which started from the quarterfinals stage featured Al Ahly of Egypt, Simba from Tanzania, Nigeria’s Enyimba, Wydad Club Athletics of Morocco, Tunisia’s Esperance, TP Mazembe from Congo, South African giants Mamelodi Sundowns and Angola’s Petro De Luanda.
In a home and away fixtures, clubs battled to be on top after 180 minutes of action to qualify to the semi finals. Meanwhile, it worth noting that each club received $1 million for the quarterfinals stage.
In a keenly contested first round Simba, TP Mazembe, Petro De Luanda and Enyimba were booted out of the competition.
Al Ahly 3-3 Simba
Sundowns 2-0 Petro de Luanda
Esperance 3-1 TP Mazembe
Wydad 4 -0 Enyimba
Ahly qualified on away goal rule, as they scored 2 goals in Tanzania.
Similar to the quarterfinals, a two legged semi final was set to take place among Al Ahly, Mamelodi Sundowns, Wydad Club Athletic and Esperance. This stage of the competition brought more excitement to the fans and players gave it their all.
Sundowns 1-0 Al Ahly
Wydad 1-1 Esperance
(5-4)
An interesting finals have been set between WAC of Morocco and South Africa’s Mamelodi Sundowns. The first leg of the final will take place in Morocco on Sunday November 5, 2023 and the return leg slated for November 12 2023.
GTV Sports+’ duo Akosua Adjei and Isaac Tetteh have been anchoring match day discussions.
