CAF Super League: Motsepe Launches Inaugural $100-million Tournament

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The competition will, for the first time, be held one year from now with 24 teams participating.

Caf president Patrice Motsepe has launched Africa’s Super League with prize money of $100 million.

During the 44th Caf Ordinary General Assembly on August 10 in Arusha, Tanzania, Motsepe said each member association is set to benefit from the money accrued from the inaugural competition set to begin in 2023.

“We announced on July 3, 2022, that the total prize money of the Caf Africa Super League will be $100 million, with the winner receiving $11.5 million,” Caf said in a statement.

“We intend to pay each member association $1 million per annum from the Caf Africa Super League funds.

“We also intend to allocate $50 million to CAF from these funds for youth and women’s football development and for all its other competitions to ensure that they are globally competitive.”

While addressing the assembly, Mostepe said the inception of the Super League is meant to make African tournaments competitive.

“We also want to use $50 million from the African Super League to make some of our competitions competitive,” the South African added.

“The prize money of competitions must be very high to make them exciting and to use some of that money to pay the players, the staff, and administrators.”

Motsepe further conveyed confidence that the money from the inaugural tournament could be used to ease financial pressure on the participating clubs.

“Some of the club owners tell me that when they play in the Champions League and the Confederation Cup, they have to spend money on transport and logistics,” he continued.

“What we are planning to do in the Super League is to give each of the 24 clubs that will participate in the initial Super League $2.5 million dollars. The $2.5 million should be used to buy players and assist with transport.

“You have to win on the field of play. We have to show the rest of the world that in those 90 minutes, we can win and be successful to show that African football is respected like football worldwide.”

Motsepe also believes that the advent of the Super League will help clubs grow their financial muscle and keep the best players in Africa.

“The success of club football is based on commercial viability. The Africa Super League, for us, is the most important intervention for the development and advancement of football in Africa,” he concluded.

“African clubs have never had a good foundation financially to keep some of the best players in Africa to stay in Africa.

“From an income perspective, they love the continent, and they want to be in Africa, so the financial part of club football is a critical issue, and what we’re hoping to do is improve the quality of football. We need to get the spectators excited about watching local football, so it’s as good as watching football anywhere in the world.”

The Super League will officially kick off in August 2023.

By: Goal