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Tournament tinkering: Part 2 – CAF

Last time, I wrote a piece on a probable “Nations League” for CONMEBOL, so this time, let’s see how such a tournament could work for Africa.

CAF (Confederation of African Football) has 56 member unions, so how do we go about evenly dividing them into leagues?

Let’s use the ranking of the sides to determine the leagues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: (A couple of nations haven’t been active in the last four years, so haven’t been included in the table). (With Sierra Leone being suspended due to government involvement, they will not partake).

Format: To simplify, each of the eight teams (plus the remaining six) sides I’ve grouped together will be split into to two groups of four (Chad to Somalia will be split into two groups of three).

The first eight will be in “League A”, the second eight sides will be in “League B”, and so on, and so forth.

What would be at stake? 

In League A, the sides that finish first and second in each group will qualify for the semi-finals (which’ll be played over one leg [the sides that finish top of each group will play at home]) whilst the teams that finish bottom of each group in League A will be relegated to League B. As for the third-placed sides in League A, they’ll contest a “relegation play-off” against the runners-up of League B.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, that’s the format done, but when will the tournament take place?

Given that the African Cup of Nations has been held in odd-numbered years since 2013 (to give African sides more time to prepare for the World Cup) the proposed (well, I say “proposed”) tournament will take place during the current international window (of an even-numbered year e.g. 2020, with the finals taking place the following Summer).

Could this proposed tournament work? 

Will this tournament be linked to African Cup of Nations qualifying? With an expanded tournament coming up next year, this may be linked to give sides (that haven’t already qualified through the normal process) another chance to qualify. The criticism about that is that it’ll weaken the tournament, and that’s exactly what has been said about the UEFA Nations League to Euro 2020 qualifying, so I’ll leave that situation to be discussed in the comments.

Ranking

Like the proposed CONMEBOL “Nations League”, CAF ranking will be frozen to protect World Cup seeding.

Overall, what do you think of my suggested tournament? Will it further improve African football, or will it be a bit “much”?