CAF mulls reforms to Champions League, World Cup qualifiers

CAIRO (December 11, 2002 3:17 p.m. EST) - The expansion of the African Champions League and changes to the system used for World Cup qualifiers were among major reforms under discussion by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) on Wednesday.

"We have decided to look at the evolution of all of our tournaments," said CAF president Issa Hayatou as an ad-hoc committee met to discuss a major overhaul of the African Champions League, the African Cup Winners' Cup and the CAF Cup.

The meeting came after continuing complaints from clubs over the lack of sponsorship and marketing opportunities and the rising costs of competing without the chance of prize money.

Officials said the committee discussed an expansion of the African Champions League, starting in 2004, which would allow major countries to enter more than one team.

The Champions League is the only one of the three annual African club tournaments that has attracted sponsorship and has a television and marketing contract with French company Sport Five, which runs until 2008 and is worth $40 million.

Also considered was merging the Cup Winners' Cup and the CAF Cup into a single competition, as has been done in Europe, since it would have a better chance of attracting sponsorship.

The recommendations are to be discussed further by CAF's executive committee, who meet in Cairo on Saturday, but any confirmation of changes is not expected until next year.

On Thursday, another ad-hoc committee will discuss Africa's qualifiers for the World Cup finals in Germany in 2006. There is growing opposition to a plan to use the 2006 African Nations Cup finals as the qualifying vehicle.

The decision to use the Nations Cup was made at the CAF Congress in Mali in January. The confederation felt the new coordinated international calendar did not allow for separate qualifiers for the two tournaments, as was previously the case.

The presidents of the five African countries at this year's World Cup finals - Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia - are among those on the committee.

Alternative proposals include playing the Nations Cup every four years instead of every two. However, CAF has previously rejected this idea because the tournament is a major revenue generator for African soccer.

Another idea was to play a full qualifying campaign with five group winners reaching the 2006 World Cup finals and the top three in each group going to the Nations Cup finals, which are to be played in Egypt the same year.