Representing the African confederation of FIFA, CAF organizes runs and regulates national team and clubcontinental competitions annually or biennially and controls the prize money and broadcast rights to such competitions. CAF will be allocated 9 spots at the FIFA World Cup starting from 2026 and could have an opportunity of 10 spots with the addition of an intercontinental play-off tournament involving six teams to decide the last two FIFA World Cup places (46+2).
The headquarters of CAF was first situated within the offices of the Sudanese Football Association in Khartoum until it experienced a fire outbreak and then moved to a town near Cairo, Egypt until 2002. Youssef Mohamad was the first general secretary and Abdel Aziz Abdallah Salem, the first president. The current president is Patrice Motsepe from South Africa, who was elected on 12 March 2021 in an unopposed elections held in Rabat, Morocco.[5][6]
CAF launched a competition for all African composers to create its anthem without lyrics to reflect the cultural patrimony and the music of Africa on 18 September 2007.[7] The chosen anthem, which is 74 seconds in length and its composer unknown to this day, was first published to the site on 16 January 2008 and has been used as the entry song for every official competition match organized by CAF and its sub-confederations.
Some African states with limited or no international recognition have official national teams, but none have been considered for CAF membership. Instead, they are affiliated with organizations such as CONIFA.
Shortly after formation, CAF organized the Africa Cup of Nations (abbreviated AFCON) in 1957 and it has since become its flagship competition. Faced with undisclosed decline in popularity of local competitions and the mass exodus of homegrown footballers to Europe, Asia and the Americas in the 1990s and early 2000s, CAF launched the African Nations Championship (alternatively, though not widely used, the Championship of African Nations (CHAN)) on 11 September 2007 and began organization two years later, to address this issue. CAF also organizes qualification tournaments/competitions for the FIFA U-20 World Cup and the FIFA U-17 World Cup for its member associations; both of which initially began on a home-and-away two-legged basis but has since 1995 been organized in appointed host countries as respectively the Under-20 and U-17 Africa Cup of Nations.
For women's football operates competitions which currently serve as qualification tournaments for the related FIFA-organized tournaments which launched at the exact same year they began formation. The flagship African women's football competition/tournament is the Women's Africa Cup of Nations, which launched in 1991 as the African Women's Championship and was known in the mass media between 2015 and 2021 as the Africa/African Women/Women's Cup of Nations, which currently qualifies 4 teams to the FIFA Women's World Cup. CAF also organizes qualification matches for "promising future female footballers" at both the Under-20 and Under-17 levels, launched in 2002 and 2008 respectively, both of which crowns no champions but instead qualifies 2 teams to compete at the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup and the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup respectively.
Club
For African clubs, CAF runs the CAF Men's and Women's Champions League, the CAF Confederation Cup, the CAF Super Cup and the African Schools Football Championship for both males and females. First held in 1964 as the African Cup of Champions Clubs (simply known sometimes as the African Cup) and rebranded in 1997 as the CAF Champions League, this "prestigious" football club competition currently features the champions of top-division leagues of CAF member associations and the runners-up teams of the league classifications of member associations the top 12 ranked national associations as documented by the CAF 5-year ranking system.
A currently-former competition, the African Cup Winners' Cup, commenced in 1975 for national cup winners of member associations and a third currently-former competition, the CAF Cup, launched in 1992 for African teams who finished below the top 2 positions of the league classifications of member associations and haven't met any criteria for qualification to any CAF competition. CAF decided to merge these two competitions together to form the current second-tier CAF Confederation Cup in 2004, and it currently incoporates the participation of national cup winners from the Cup Winners' Cup, whiles maintaining the format of the participation of teams who finished 3rd in the of the top-division league classifications of the 12 highest-ranked member associations as documented by the CAF 5-Year Ranking system from the CAF Cup. It is also ranked below the CAF Champions League.[11]
The winners of the CAF Champions League play the winners of the African Cup Winners' Cup until 2004 and the CAF Confederation Cup thereafter in the CAF Super Cup which was launched in 1993.
The CAF Women's Champions League was announced and approved on 30 June 2020, launched on 12 September that year and began contesting the following year, i.e. 2021.[12][13] It features women's national league and cup winners nvolving the champions of CAF's sub-confederation qualification tournaments for women's club teams.
In October 2004, South African telecommunications giant, MTN, contracted a 4-year deal to sponsor CAF competitions worth US$12.5 million, which was the biggest sponsorship deal in African sporting history at that time.[14]
CAF opened new sponsorship callouts when MTN's contract expired and French telecommunications giant Orange scooped it up in July 2009, signing an 8-year comprehensive long-term undisclosed deal to sponsor CAF competitions with a value of €100 million.[15]
On 21 July 2016, French energy and petroleum giant, Total S.A., replaced Orange as the main sponsor with an 8-year sponsorship package from CAF for a value of €950 million[16] to support its competitions.[17] Total rebranded as TotalEnergies on 28 May 2021.[18]
Update as of 3 August 2022 in chronological order.
By country
The following table lists all the countries whose clubs have won at least one CAF competition. Egyptian clubs are the most successful, with a total of 41 titles. Egyptian clubs hold a record number of wins in the African Cup of Champions Clubs/CAF Champions League (16), the now-defunct African Cup Winners' Cup (8), the CAF Super Cup (12) and the now-defunct Afro-Asian Club Championship (3), followed by Tunisian clubs with 24 titles and they have the most victories in the now-defunct CAF Cup (4). In third place overall, Moroccan clubs have secured 23 titles and they have the most victories in the CAF Confederation Cup (7).
Rankings are calculated by the CAF based on points gathered by African teams throughout their participation in international club tournaments organized by either CAF themselves or FIFA since the establishment of the first African Cup of Champions Clubs in 1964.[21]
