CAF Confederation Cup
Kwara United join Remo Stars as Nigeria’s Confederation Cup flagbearers
BY KUNLE SOLAJA.
The ongoing Aiteo Cup will not produce a that will feature in the CAF Confederation Cup as the draw will hold before the completion of the national cup.
According to a list of participating clubs in the Confederation Cup released by CAF on Sunday, fourth placed Kwara United in the NPFL have been registered as Nigeria’s second team.
What happened in Nigeria is also what has taken place in Egypt where the season for the league has not been concluded ahead of CAF’s draw for the inter-clubs competition.
With the Egyptian season not ending until end of August, the FA decided to pick flagbearers according to results obtained at the end of the first stanza of the Egyptian league.
The decision means that Al Ahly and Zamalek will be playing in the next season of the Champions League as the top two teams, while Pyramids will be accompanied by Future in the Confederation Cup.
For Kwara United, this will be the second time they are taking part in the Confederation Cup having reached the group stage in the 2007 edition where they came last in Group B that had Sudan’s Al-Merrikh Sporting Club, Nigeria’s Dolphins and Egypt’s Ismaily.
Kwara United also featured in the now defunct CAF Cup in 1999 and reached the quarterfinal stage.
Remo Stars and Kwara United will begin the series from the first round as they are not among the 13 clubs that draw bye into the second round.
The teams drawn by are: USMA and JS Saoura of Algeria, Angola’s GD Sagrada Esperança, CS Multidisciplinaire Diables Noirs of Congo, DC Motema Pembe of DR Congo, Pyramids of Egypt, Accra Hearts of Oak of Ghana and RS Berkane of Morocco.
The others are: Marumo Gallants FC of South Africa, Azam FC of Tanzania, Tunisia duo of CS Sfaxien and Club Africaine as well as Zambia’s Zesco United.
CAF Confederation Cup
CAF adjudges Morocco’s Youssef Mehri’s goal as the fastest in football history
Moroccan club, Renaissance de Berkane, beat their Algerian counterparts, CS Constantine, 4-0 in the first leg of the CAF Confederation Cup semi-finals at the weekend.
The game got off to a dream start for the Moroccan club as it took Youssef Mehri less than a minute to open the scoring in the big win against the Algerians.
Officially, the goal is recorded to have been scored after 13 seconds.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), CAF remarks: “Youssef Mehri goes straight into the history books. The RS Berkane striker scores the fastest goal ever scored in the CAF Cup.”
A deeper search by Sports Village Square indicates that a Nigerian player, Paul Onuachu, had previously scored a faster goal, but not in a CAF Cup duel.
The basketball player-like footballer scored his first international goal in a 1-0 defeat of Egypt on 26 March 2019.
The goal inflicted Nigeria’s first defeat on Egypt in 29 years. But more significant was the timing of the goal. Onuachu, within eight seconds of kick-off, undoubtedly entered the record books as the second fastest goal in international football records after that of Germany’s Lukas Podolsk, who scored after six seconds in a friendly against Ecuador in 2013.
Fans had hardly settled down at the Stephen Keshi Stadium in Asaba for the Nigeria versus Egypt match when Onuachu released a thunderous shot that turned out to be the match’s decider.
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The Renaissance Sportive de Berkane delegation will travel to Algeria this Friday to face CS Constantine in the CAF Cup. Tension may be building up for the potentially explosive confrontation that could have a build-up from last year’s fixtures of the Moroccan club and another Algerian outfit, USM Algiers, in the CAF Confederation Cup.
A Moroccan news outlet, Sport.le360, reports that a Tunisian airline will operate the direct flight between Oujda-Angad Airport, which is located about 12 kilometres north of Oujda and about 600 kilometres northeast of Casablanca, near the Algerian border and Constantine Mohamed Boudiaf International Airport.
Last year, political differences between Morocco and Algeria scuttled similar semi-final clashes between clubs of both countries.
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The Court of Arbitration for Sport on Wednesday ruled in favour of the Algerian football federation in a row over a map of Morocco on shirts worn by Renaissance Berkane in the 2024 CAF Confederation Cup.
Algerian club USM Alger were kicked out of last year’s competition after both legs of their semi-final against Berkane were cancelled because of a diplomatic dispute.
Neither match took place as USMA and the Algerian authorities objected to a map of Morocco on the Berkane shirts which included Western Sahara.
Algeria cut diplomatic ties with North African neighbours Morocco in 2021, partly over the Western Sahara issue.
The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco but claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks the territory’s independence.
The Confederation of African Football awarded Berkane a 3-0 victory for both legs of the semi-final.
CAF at the time responded to an appeal by the Algerian FA by ruling in favour of Berkane, saying the club had been wearing the same jerseys since the start of the tournament.
But the Algerian FA took the case to sport’s highest court in Switzerland, which determined that the shirts in question were “contrary to CAF regulations, as they display a territorial map that is of a political nature.”
“The image of a map of Morocco including Western Sahara on the shirts of RS Berkane depicts a message, a demonstration or propaganda of a political nature as it represents the assertion of a territorial dispute that is contested and still unresolved as of today,” CAS said in a statement.
“By the laws of the game of the International Football Association Board, it is prohibited to convey any content of a political nature on all equipment, including shirts.”
CAS added that the initial decision by CAF to “maintain the approval of the shirts is annulled”, but the court said that it would have no effect on the results of the tournament.
Egypt’s Zamalek beat Berkane on away goals in the final.
-AFP
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