The 2023–24 CAF Champions League (officially the 2023–24 TotalEnergies CAF Champions League for sponsorship reasons)[1] was the 60th edition of Africa's premier club football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), and the 28th edition under the current CAF Champions League title.
The winners automatically qualified for the 2024–25 CAF Champions League and earned the right to play against the winners of the 2023–24 CAF Confederation Cup in the 2024 CAF Super Cup.[2] They also qualified for the brand new 2024 FIFA Intercontinental Cup and the expanded 2025 FIFA Club World Cup in the United States.
The qualifying rounds for the CAF Champions League may have been pushed back to August and September and the group stage pushed forward to start in November. No official explanation was given, though the press claims that the reason was the introduction of CAF's newest competition, the African Football League, which began on 20 October 2023.
All 54 CAF member associations may enter the CAF Champions League, with the 12 highest ranked associations according to their CAF 5-year ranking eligible to enter two teams in the competition.[2] As a result, theoretically a maximum of 68 teams could enter the tournament – although this level has never been reached.
For the 2023–24 CAF Champions League, the CAF used the 2019–2023 CAF 5-year ranking, which calculates points for each entrant association based on their clubs’ performance over those 5 years in the CAF Champions League and CAF Confederation Cup. The criteria for points were the following:[3][4][5]
The points were multiplied by a coefficient according to the year as follows:
The following 54 teams from 42 associations entered the competition. Teams in:
Associations are shown according to their 2018–2023 CAF 5-year Ranking – those with a ranking score have their rank and score (in parentheses) indicated.
The draw for the qualifying rounds was held on 25 July 2023, 11:00 GMT (14:00 local time, UTC+3), at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[6]
In the qualifying rounds, each tie was played on a home-and-away two-legged basis. If the aggregate score was tied after the second leg, the away goals rule was applied, and if still tied, extra time was not played, and a penalty shoot-out was used to determine the winner (Regulations III. 13 & 14).
Notes:
The 16 winners of the second round advanced to the group stage.
The draw for the group stage was held on 6 October 2023, 13:00 GMT (15:00 local time, UTC+2), in Johannesburg, South Africa. The 16 winners of the second round of qualifying rounds were drawn into four groups of four.[8]
The teams were seeded by their performances in the CAF competitions for the previous five seasons (CAF 5-year ranking points shown next to every team). Each group contained one team from each of Pot 1, Pot 2, Pot 3, and Pot 4, and each team was allocated to the positions in their group according to their pot.
The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:
The bracket was decided after the draw for the knockout stage, which was held on 12 March 2024, 15:00 CAT (UTC+2) at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[9]
The first leg was played on 18 May, and the second leg was played on 25 May 2024.
Al Ahly won 1–0 on aggregate.
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