CAF Champions League

CAF launched the African Cup of Champions Clubs in 1964 and held the first edition in 1965 — won by Cameroon's Oryx Douala, who beat Mali's Stade Malien 2–1 in a single-leg final in Accra. The format imitated the European Cup: continental champion clubs entered, two-legged knockouts decided each round, and the winner was crowned the best club on the continent.

The competition was rebranded as the CAF Champions League in 1997, with a group stage added in 1997 and progressively expanded. Today the tournament begins with 64 clubs entering preliminary rounds, narrows to a 16-team group stage in four groups of four, and runs two-legged quarter-finals, semi-finals and final.

Cairo's Al Ahly are the defining superpower of the competition. Their 12 titles, the most recent in 2024, more than double the next club's haul. Egyptian rivals Zamalek and DR Congo's TP Mazembe share second place on five each.

Sixty-four clubs enter at the preliminary round (one per CAF member federation, with the strongest associations getting two slots based on the CAF five-year ranking). Two preliminary rounds reduce the field to 16 group-stage teams, drawn into four groups of four. The top two from each group advance to two-legged quarter-finals.

Unlike Europe's Champions League, both the semi-finals and the final are played over two legs — preserving the tournament's traditional home-and-away rhythm. The final's first leg is hosted by the side drawn first; the trophy is lifted at the second leg.

The 2025-26 edition is the 62nd season of the competition and the 30th under the CAF Champions League name. The winner takes home USD 6 million, with the runner-up receiving USD 2.5 million.

Mamelodi Sundowns reach a second consecutive Champions League final after losing the 2024-25 title 3–2 on aggregate to Pyramids FC. The Pretoria side beat Espérance de Tunis 2–0 on aggregate in the semi-finals, with the away leg in Tunis (won 1–0 by Sundowns) and the return at Loftus Versfeld (1–0 to Sundowns).

AS FAR Rabat overcame Morocco's RS Berkane 2–1 on aggregate in their semi. The military-backed club is chasing its first Champions League title — the only major continental honour missing from its trophy room. Their previous best run in the modern format was a quarter-final exit in 2023.

Egyptian winger Trézéguet (Mahmoud Hassan) of Al Ahly led the goalscoring charts in the early stages with six goals before Al Ahly were eliminated; among finalists, Sundowns' Lucas Ribeiro and Iqraam Rayners are the standout marksmen.

Al Ahly have won the Champions League 12 times — half of those titles in the last fifteen years (2012, 2013, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024). Manuel Jose's mid-2000s side and Pitso Mosimane's three finals in a row (2020, 2021, 2023) defined two distinct eras of dominance.

Outside Egypt, the tournament has been an Arabic-speaking North African affair for much of the past decade. Wydad Casablanca (2017, 2022), Espérance de Tunis (2018, 2019), Raja Casablanca and ES Sétif have all lifted the trophy in the modern era.

Sub-Saharan winners since 2010 are limited to TP Mazembe (2015) and Mamelodi Sundowns (2016) — a pattern the 2025-26 final could break if Sundowns finally lift it twenty years on from their first run to the final.