CAF reveal calendar for 2020-21 competitions

Wednesday Sep 02, 2020. 15:00

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) have revealed their calendar for the 2020-21 football season.

The current (2019-20) CAF Champions League and CAF Confederation Cup tournaments are set to be completed in late September and October.

CAF also clarified the guidelines for Member Associations (MAs) in regards to how qualification is organised in regards to the pandemic-hit season, setting out the following on their official website:

– MAs that completed the 2019/20 season, the engaged teams shall be the teams qualified from their national competitions for 2019/20.

– MAs that did not complete the 2019/20 season but set a criteria to classify the teams or homologate the standings in the national competitions for 2019/20, the engaged teams shall be the teams qualified from the national competitions 2019/20.

– MAs that could not complete the 2019/20 season and considered the season cancelled, the engaged teams will be the same representatives for the 2019/20 Interclubs season taking into consideration the quota of each association according to their ranking.

– MAs yet to complete their season or unable to finish before the engagement deadline, they will be requested to choose one of the above-mentioned criteria to determine their representative(s) subject to the approval of CAF.

Player registrations for the 2020-21 season will be open from October 21 to November 19, with the first leg of the preliminary rounds for both the Champions League and Confederation Cup set for November 20-22, with the return games a week later.

The second round of preliminaries are set for December 11-13 and 18-21, while the Confed Cup’s playoff round will be held in February 12-13 and 18-19, with the Champions League group stage starting at the same time.

The draw for knockout phase will take place at the end of April, with the matches set to start in mid-May. The Confederation Cup final is set for July 10, with the Champions League final taking place a week later.

The calendar also includes the dates for the 2021 African Nations Championship (CHAN) in Cameroon (January 16 to February 7), as well as the U-20 Africa Cup of Nations in Mauritania (February 21 to March 4).