PARIS, Oct 20 (Reuters) – The African Football League, a new continental super league competition featuring eight teams, kicked off with a crowd of 60,000 in Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam on Friday as hosts Simba drew 2-2. with Africa’s most successful team Al Ahli of Egypt.
The two teams were playing a quarter-final first leg and will meet again in Cairo on Tuesday in the second leg.
The eight-team event bears little resemblance to the original idea proposed by FIFA president Gianni Infantino to the Confederation of African Football’s member nations at their 2020 conference.
Infantino, who attended Friday’s match in the Tanzanian capital at the head of a heavyweight FIFA delegation, said at the time that a 24-team tournament would have a prize money of $200 million and retain top talent in Africa with the potential to turn the continent into a leader . the world game.
But nearly four years after the idea was first mooted, the league began as a knock-out competition, to be completed in 17 days and with each team guaranteed $1 million to enter with $4 million going to the winner, as well as prize money for the African Champions League.
Africa insisted on the idea of ​​a continental super league after similar plans in Europe were doomed when clubs pulled out after widespread opposition.
Only one sponsor has been signed for the African Football League, with a deal with Visit Saudi, Saudi Arabia’s tourism authority, announced last week.
When asked where the money for the new competition came from, CAF president Patrice Motsepe told reporters at a pre-match press conference: “We are praying very hard. It comes from heaven.”
CAF has previously said the eight-team format is a precursor to a bigger competition next year.
The other six clubs in this year’s competition will play their first matches this weekend and the overall winners will advance to the semi-finals.
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