Plateau Utd to Battle Cameroon’s Eding, MFM Draws Real Bamako
Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) champions Plateau United is to take on Eding of Cameroon in the preliminary round of next year’s CAF Champions League.
At the draw ceremony in Cairo yesterday, the Jos-based team making its debut in the money-spinning annual clubs’ competition is to reopen the rivalry between Nigeria and Cameroon when the first leg of the preliminary round begins next February.
Nigeria’s other team in the elite club competition in the continent MFM FC was paired along with Mali’s Real Bamako in the first round.
According to Confederation of African Football (CAF), The first and second leg matches are to be played between February 9 and 18, 2018.
Should both Nigerian clubs advance to the Round of 16, Plateau United are scheduled to face Etoile du Sahel of Tunisia, while MFM FC is to play the winners of the clash between AC Atoho of Congo and MC Alger of Algeria. These matches are scheduled for March.
This year, no Nigerian club is scheduled to feature in the group stage of the Champions League.
Enyimba is the only Nigerian club to have won this competition twice in 2003 and 2004.
Wydad Casablanca of Morocco will begin the defence of the Champions League title against either Mali’s Stade Malien or newcomers Williamsville AC of Ivory Coast.
As the reigning champions, Wydad is one of five teams given a bye into the second round of the tournament.
Beaten finalists in 2017 Al Ahly of Egypt and DR Congo’s Confederation Cup winners TP Mazembe are also straight into the second round.
The other teams to skip the first round are the 2016 African champions Mamelodi Sundowns from South Africa and Tunisia’s Etoile du Sahel, who lifted the trophy in 2007.
In the CAF Confederation Cup, Enyimba has been drawn bye, while Nigeria’s other representatives Akwa United of Uyo will tackle Hawks of The Gambia in the preliminary rounds.
The preliminary rounds will be played between February 9 and 18, while the second round is slated for march 9-18.
Enyimba will take on the winners of the preliminary clash between a team from Benin (yet to be named) and Hafia of Guinea.
Should Akwa United progress they will take on the winners of the match between SC Sahel of Niger and Ittihad of Libya.
Akwa United was knocked out in the second round of the same competition this year.
No Nigerian club has yet won this tournament.
Meanwhile, CAF has outlined how the dates for its club competitions will begin to change in 2018.
CAF explained yesterday that the move to holding the tournaments between August or September and May the following year is not to fit in with European clubs.
“The change is not to fit with European clubs but to match the schedule of more than 75 per cent of the leagues on the continent,” CAF’s Director of Communication, Junior Binyam, confirmed to BBC Sport last night.
“This will also allow us to have a player registration period for the CAF competitions that matches the period most countries follow already.
“It will also align things according to the new timeline of our flagship tournament, which is the African Cup of Nations.”
From 2019 the Nations Cup will be held in the June or July rather than from the current dates of January to February.
In the past African Champions League and the second-tier Confederation Cup took place in a calendar year, in 2017 they ran from February until November.
For 2018 similar dates will be followed but then the competitions will begin again in December 2018 and be completed by May 2019.
The new regular window for both tournaments will then begin in either September or October 2019 and finish by May 2020.
The change in dates to all the competitions was approved at the July meeting of the CAF executive committee in Morocco, following a symposium on the future of the game in Africa.
FIRST ROUND: (South Sudan) Capital City Authority (Uganda) Armed Forces (Gambia) Swallows (Swaziland) (Mali) v Williamsville AC (Ivory Coast) Stars (Ghana) Real Bangui (Central African Republic) FC (Nigeria)