The African Super League is one of the highly anticipated competitions by football followers, especially in light of the controversy over the motives for its establishment, in addition to that it will bring together the best and oldest eight clubs in the brown continent, and it will see the light for the first time next August in the first version, in which the Tunisian Esperance was the first African team to announce officially participate in it.
The tournament will be played in a home-and-away system, but the dates for drawing lots, matches and the final formula will be revealed in the coming weeks, provided that Esperance, the Tunisian champion in the last six seasons, will be in the first level..
On Tuesday, the Tunisian Esperance Club officially announced the details of its participation in the first edition of the African Super League, stressing that it will be the sole representative of Tunisian football in this new competition, which will be launched in the second half of the current year..
Confirm participation
Esperance, the CAF Champions League holder on 4 occasions, revealed in a statement published on his official page on the communication sites that he will be among the 8 clubs that will participate in the new African competition, according to the classification of the Confederation of African Football, so that the club called the “Blood and Gold” team will be the first Maghreb team to officially announce. Play in the Super League.
In the same statement, the club’s board of directors said that the delegation of the African Union, led by Mohamed Faisal Seedat, paid an inspection visit to the club’s headquarters in the Tunisian capital, during which it was briefed on the administrative offices and all the team’s facilities.
- The idea of establishing the African Super League dates back to November 2019, following a visit by the President of the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) Gianni Infantino to the Congolese club TP Mazembe on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of its founding, where he revealed that ancient African clubs such as Mazembe and others need to participate. In competitions that are able to generate money and profits that cover the large expenses that you make when participating in the Champions League or the Confederation Cup.
- And in the summer of 2021, the president of the Confederation of African Football, Patrice Motsepe, officially announced the approval of the project to establish the African Super League, a tournament that will not conflict with the Confederation Cup and African Champions League competitions, while media sources indicated that the total prize money will be in the range of $ 100 million..
- And the CAF decided that the first version would include only 8 clubs, which are Al-Ahly from Egypt, Taraji from Tunisia, Wydad from Morocco, TP Mazembe from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sun Downs from South Africa, Ghanaian pine hearts, Tanzanian Simba Club, Cameroonian Cotton or Guinean Houria Conakry..
Hamdi Al-Medeb, President of the Tunisian Esperance Club, said that his team will participate in the Super League with the aim of winning the title, but also to achieve material gains and profits that would cover the exorbitant expenses incurred by the club in its annual participation in the Champions League or CAF Cup..
Al-Madab continued, in statements to the media about the continental participation of his club: “If we think about what we spend on the Champions League, compared to what we earn, it would be better not to participate in the first place. We have to charter flights at over $100,000 each“.
According to what was reported by various sources, the competition will start with the quarter-final matches in October, with a direct elimination system, after two round-robin matches, with the final round taking place in December 2023..
Criticism of the Super League
And before the establishment of the first edition of it, the new league was subject to harsh criticism from many clubs and football federations in Africa, claiming that “FIFA” would make the Super League a vehicle to compensate for its failure to launch the competition in Europe..
In his turn, the former player of Tunisian Esperance, Sami Al-Arousi, confirmed in statements to Sky News Arabia that the choice of Esperance to represent Tunisia in the new tournament stems from the club’s prestige, its history, and its record full of titles locally, in the Arab world, and in the Maghreb, adding that the club has all the ingredients that CAF is looking for as the team that recorded its presence in the first rounds In the past years in Africa, he said.
Al-Arousi said: “The African Super League” appears to be a mysterious project that carries with it profit dimensions and investment goals that “CAF” aspires to achieve by bringing in new advisors, provided that the participating clubs are awarded high-value financial prizes, but they cannot in any way match the sporting implications and football goals. Which should be the basis of every competition“.
The player, who led Esperance to win the Confederation Cup, the Cup Winners’ Cup and the African Super Cup in the nineties, said, “The results of the first edition of the Super League and what will emerge from it mathematically and financially will be the factors influencing the future of this tournament.”“,
And he continued in his interview with Sky News Arabia: “It is clear that the failure of the Superleague project in Europe will put this tournament in front of a difficult but decisive test that will either end with overwhelming success if it achieves its sporting and economic goals, or it will be judged by a quick end.”.”
However, the former player of the Tunisian national team confirmed that the presence of football poles in Africa and ancient clubs such as the Tunisian Esperance Club, the Egyptian Al-Ahly Club and the Moroccan Wydad Casablanca will be the main pillars of the Superleague Championship, which will guarantee it a minimum level of success, fame and follow-up by virtue of the mass base of those clubs, their strength and balance of coronations as well as their budgets. Huge, he said.
The Tunisian Esperance Club is one of the most crowned clubs in the continent, and it is also the most Tunisian team in the number of coronations..
Esperance, which celebrated its 104th anniversary on January 15, won the CAF Champions League on 4 occasions in 1994, 2011, 2018 and 2019, as well as the CAF Cup in 1997, the African Cup of Nations in 1998 and the African Super Cup in 1995. It also participated in the Club World Cup on three occasions.
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