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EGYPT – Al Ahly have issued six demands to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) ahead of their upcoming CAF Champions League final.
After a back-and-forth disagreement with Africa’s football governing body over the location of the final, CAF confirmed On Tuesday that Morocco will host the tournament title decider, a controversial decision as it would give Wydad Casablanca home advantage on 30 May.
With the decision made, Al Ahly’s crisis management committee, headed by club President Mahmoud El Khatib, held a meeting on Tuesday and later sent an official letter to CAF, highlighting six demands ahead of the CAFCL final.
Here are those six demands, per the club’s official website:
“1- Setting the standards to hold the CAF Champions League final including (the capacity of the stadium, allocating 50per cent of the stadium’s capacity to Al Ahly fans) to provide equal opportunities. The club will pay the prices of the allocated tickets from different categories and we are waiting for your response about the prices of the tickets.
“2- We would like CAF to guarantee that half of the stadium’s capacity will be allocated only for Al Ahly fans and we want CAF to co-ordinate this demand with the parties responsible for organising the match.
“3- Guaranteeing the safety of everyone involved in the match and ensuring that the organisers of the match will apply all the regulations of CAF and FIFA to prevent any factor that would affect the performance of the players.
“4- Facilitating the visa procedures for Al Ahly fans to ensure that our fans can easily travel and attend the match in their allocated seats (half of the stadium’s capacity). We would like you to take into consideration the shortage of time and that we are waiting for your response in the next 72 hours.
“5- Appointing one of Africa’s top referees in the continent to officiate the match and do not consider any referees who committed controversial mistakes and caused problems in any of the previous CAF competitions.
“6- Appointing European referees for VAR, which was done during the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers especially since the winner of the game will represent Africa in the FIFA Club World Cup.”