CAF Knee Jerk Reaction To Impact Absa Premiership Title Race

The Confederation of African Football (CAF), the custodians of the game on the continent have arbitrarily changed the dates for CAF Champions League and Confederations fixtures putting Absa Premiership fixtures involving Mamelodi Sundowns and Bidvest Wits into turmoil thereby inevitably impacting the title race matrix.

This is as a result of Caf’s decision last week to postpone and reschedule the African Nations Championship (CHAN-2020) in Cameroon from January to April, because no club competition matches can be played at the same time as the tournament‚ a new calendar for both the Champions League and Confederation Cup has been drawn up without consideration for domestic fixtures in respective countries leading to fixture pile-up and congestion for continental representatives.

Mamelodi Sundowns and Bidvest Wits are the South African representatives in the CAF Champions League and CAF Confederations Cups respectively.

Sundowns are competing in Group C of the Champions League against Algeria’s USM Algeria‚ Angola’s Petro Atletico and perennial rivals Wydad Casablanca of Morocco.

Bidvest Wits‚ who are through to the group phase for the first time‚ are in Group C of the African Confederation Cup and take on Al Nasr (Libya)‚ Djoliba of Mali and Guinea’s Horoya.

The first three rounds of fixtures are not affected by the changes as they will finish as originally scheduled in December.

But the final three fixtures which had originally being set to be played in February and March‚ will all now be squeezed in January and the first two days of February which will be the peak period by which the business end of the local league would be shaping up.

Sundowns and Wits will have to postpone most of their PSL games in January and then find alternate dates to play them.

The likely outcome is that current league leaders Kaizer Chiefs will continue with their measured and less strenuous programme of domestic fixtures while two of their title rivals will have to face an overload catch-up programme of a game every 3 days.

The Confederation Cup final is on May 24 and the Champions League final on May 29 as CAF are introducing a single final at a neutral venue for the first time for both competitions.

By Gerald Dandah