The Confederation of African Football (CAF)[a] (in French Confédération Africaine de Football) is the administrative and controlling body for association football, beach soccer, and futsal in Africa. It was established on 8 February 1957 at the Grand Hotel[2] in Khartoum, Sudan[3] by the national football associations of: Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and South Africa.[4] following formal discussions between the aforementioned associations at the FIFA Congress held on 7 June 1956 at Avenida Hotel in Lisbon, Portugal.[5]
Representing the African confederation of FIFA, CAF organizes runs and regulates national team and club continental competitions annually or biennially such as the Africa Cup of Nations and Women's Africa Cup of Nations, which they control the prize money and broadcast rights to. 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 6 teams to decide the last 2 FIFA World Cup places (46+2).
The main 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. President Patrice Motsepe from South Africa was elected on 12 March 2021 in an unopposed elections held in Rabat, Morocco.[6][7]
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.[8]
Sources:[9][10]
Additionally, there are territories located in Africa which are not affiliated with CAF or any other confederation to any extent.
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.
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 incorporates 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 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.[12]
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 Afro-Asian Club Championship was an annual football match jointly organized between CAF and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) between the winners of the CAF Champions League and the winners of the AFC Champions League between 1987 and 1999.
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.[13][14] 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.[15]
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.[16]
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[17] to support its competitions.[18] Total rebranded as TotalEnergies on 28 May 2021.[19]
The current main CAF sponsors are:
The following clubs are the top 10 clubs in CAF competitions.
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 44 titles. Egyptian clubs hold a record number of wins in the African Cup of Champions Clubs/CAF Champions League (18), 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) and Moroccan clubs have secured also 24 titles with 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.[22]
Per 22 June 2023:[23]
(*)= Provisional ranking (played at least 10 matches) (**)= Inactive for more than 24 months
Rankings are calculated by Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW). Top ten, last updated 12 March 2018 Archived 23 October 2019 at the Wayback Machine
For each tournament, the flag of the host country and the number of teams in each finals tournament (in brackets) are shown.
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Egypt first African team to qualify for the World Cup
Morocco first African team to draw a match in the World Cup
Tunisia first African team to win a match in the World Cup
Algeria first African team to win two matches in the World Cup Algeria first African team to qualify for two consecutive World Cups Morocco first African team to reach the knockout stage (round of sixteen)
Cameroon first African team to reach the knockout stage (quarter-finals)
Nigeria first African team to top a group stage and reach the knockout stage (round of 16) in two consecutive World Cups
Senegal first African team to reach the knockout stage (quarter-finals) further on World Cup debut
South Africa first African team to host the World Cup Algeria & Nigeria first African teams to reach the knockout stage (round of sixteen) simultaneously in the World Cup Morocco first African team to reach the knockout stage (semi-finals), taking the fourth placeTeams are sorted by number of appearances.
The voting to select the best of the century refers to three categories: male player, goalkeeper and female player and is obtained from five different steps. The resulting best players and goalkeepers were honored during the "World Football Gala 1999".[25]
In 2007, CAF published the list of top 30 African players who played in the period from 1957 to 2007, as part of the celebration of the golden jubilee or 50th anniversary of the foundation of CAF, ordered according to an online poll.[26]
Roger Milla
Mahmoud El Khatib Hossam Hassan Samuel Eto'o
Abedi Pele
George Weah
Didier Drogba Nwankwo Kanu Rabah Madjer
Kalusha Bwalya Michael Essien Augustine Okocha Saleh Selim Hacène Lalmas Benni McCarthy El Hadji Diouf Noureddine Naybet Rashidi Yekini Hany Ramzy Hassan Shehata Lucas Radebe Tarak Dhiab Mohammed Timoumi Tony Yeboah
Salif Keita Karim Abdul Razak Samuel Kuffour Lakhdar Belloumi Rigobert Song
Nasr Eddin "Jaksa" AbbasThis table is for players with 30 or more goals for a CAF national team. Players in bold are still active at international level.
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