CAF Confederation Cup

The CAF Confederation Cup is an international club association football competition run by the Confederation of African Football. Select club sides from Africa's football leagues are invited to participate in this competition, which is the second club football competition in the continent behind the CAF Champions League.

The winner of the tournament faces the winner of the CAF Champions League in the following season's CAF Super Cup.

History

The competition was founded by the CAF in 2004 by merging both the African Cup Winners' Cup and the CAF Cup in a single competition.

Qualification

From the top twelve placed CAF member associations, the winner of the domestic cup and the third placed club in the domestic league of the considered associations, are eligible to participate in the CAF Confederation Cup, while only domestic cup winners from member associations ranked from 13 till 55 are eligible to participate in the competition.

Format

The competition is played into two phases A and B.

Confederation Cup

Confederation Cup may refer to various sports competitions. It most commonly refers to:

Orlando Pirates

Orlando Pirates FC is a South African football club based in Parktown, Johannesburg that plays in the Premier Soccer League.

The club was founded in 1937 and was originally based in Orlando, Soweto. They are named 'Pirates' after the 1940 film The Sea Hawk starring Errol Flynn. Orlando Pirates are the first club since the inception of the Premier Soccer League in 1996 to have won three major trophies in a single season back to back, having won the domestic league, the Nedbank Cup and the MTN 8 during the 2010–11 season and domestic league, Telkom Knockout and the MTN 8 during the 2011–12 season. They are the only South African team to have won the CAF Champions League, which they did in 1995 and they were the runners up of 2013 CAF Champions League after they were defeated 3–1 on aggregate by Al Ahly of Egypt and recently runners up of 2015 CAF Confederation cup. Orlando Pirates remains the only team since the inception of the PSL in 1996 to have been always in the top eight bracket.

2017 CAF Confederation Cup

The 2017 CAF Confederation Cup (officially the 2017 Orange CAF Confederation Cup for sponsorship reasons) will be the 14th edition of the CAF Confederation Cup, Africa's secondary club football competition organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). The winner will earn the right to play in the 2018 CAF Super Cup.

Association team allocation

All 56 CAF member associations may enter the CAF Confederation Cup, with the 12 highest ranked associations according to their CAF 5-Year Ranking eligible to enter two teams in the competition. The title holders can also enter if they have not qualified for the CAF Champions League. As a result, theoretically a maximum of 69 teams could enter the tournament (plus eight teams eliminated from the CAF Champions League which enter the play-off round) – although this level has never been reached.

For the 2017 CAF Confederation Cup, the CAF uses the 2011–2015 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 are the following:

Al Ahly SC

Al Ahly Sporting Club (Arabic: النادي الأهلي الرياضي‎), is an Egyptian Sporting Club based out of Cairo, Egypt. The club was founded on 24 April 1907.

Al Ahly was named in 2000 by CAF as the "African Club of the Century".

Al Ahly is the most successful club in the world with 130 official trophies and also hold the highest number of international trophy won by any club in the world with a record of 20 trophies

History

Al Ahly was founded by Omar Lotfi in 1907, as a gathering place for Cairo's students' unions in the struggle against colonisation. The Ahly, meaning "national", was chosen, and Englishman Mitchell Ince became the club's first president. In the absence of a national league, Al-Ahly initially took part in regional competitions, including the Sultan Hussein Cup, which they won seven times between 1917 and 1938.

In the 1980s the club became successful on a continental level, winning the African Cup of Champions Clubs in 1982 and 1987. They triumphed again in the renamed competition in 2001, 2005, 2006, 2008 under the coaching of the Portuguese Manuel José and 2012, then finally 2013 making them the most crowned team in Africa, with 8 Champions League titles, four Cup-Winners' Cups, six Super Cups and one Afro-Asian Club Championship.