African Super League
the African Super League, and the
proposals around its format, have also
met with little comment, either in the
media or among ordinary supporters.
Infantino was the first to suggest the
idea as he looks to Africa as something
of a petri dish for his ideas on the future
of the game. It was two years ago that
he told the CAF Congress: “I hope
CAF has realised that the time has
come to change everything.”
Among his many proposals was the
creation of a Super League that, he
claimed at the time, would generate
at least $200m per year.
He made the point that the
African Champions League had no
allure because all the star African
players were at clubs outside of the
continent and that if Africa wantedto keep its talent at home, it had to
find the money to match the riches
elsewhere. This is undeniably true,
with more than1,000 African players
earning a decent professional living,
and many more daily trying to find
fame and fortune, in Europe.
The African Champions League was
reorganised in1997 to try to replicate its
European counterpart but has bumbled
along over the last two decades without
capturing the imagination of the whole
continent – never mind the rest of the
world. It is beset by poor television
coverage and regular controversy, with
little means or willpower to improve.
“Competitions in Africa are maybe
30 or 40 or 50 times less successful
than in Europe,” Infantino asserted
and Motsepe has said regularly over
the last year that he wants to create
“world-class African competition”
that will
attract
multiple
sponsors,
lucrative
television deals
and allow clubs
previously unthinkable resources.
More meetings are set for mid-year
to try to move the project along. The
owner of DR Congo champions TP
Mazembe, Moise Katumbi, has been
pushing for the start to come sooner
rather than later but the latest from
the corridors of power suggest
mid-2023, once the next AFCON
finals in the Ivory Coast are complete.
Infantino has put pressure on himself
to deliver. He has a ready-made
powerbase in Africa as FIFA continue
to liberally fund the member football
associations with annual cash grants but
he will lose support if he fails to deliver
on his claims about the Super League.
In the end it is all about the cash –
whether a Super League will have any
legitimacy in the marketplace or not.about the African Super League
are looking for a change to the club
landscape on the continent, even if the
concept of a Super League is sportingly
unfair and a contrived competition.
Those against the idea in Europe
sprung into action and piled ablitzkrieg
of condemnation down on the concept,
keeping Infantino in the shadows and
sending the likes ofJuventus’ Andrea
Agnelli and Real Madrid’s Florentino
Perez scurrying for the hills.
But in Africa, reaction has been
largely muted, with almost no public
debate never mind condemnation.
There is none of the passionate
devotion to the African Champions
League that there is for the UEFA
version, even while the honour of
winning continental glory is keenly
sought after, especially in Arabic-
speaking North Africa.
The muddled messages about
European objections...a graffiti depiction
ofJuventus president Andrea Agnelli“For the last 20 years, every club in Africa has been
losing money playing in the Champions League”
Al Ahly president Mahmoud El Khatib