Confederation of African Football
The Confederation of African Football is the administrative and controlling body for association football, beach soccer, and futsal in Africa. It was officially established on 8 February 1957 at the Grand Hotel in Khartoum, Sudan. The foundation followed a decision made at the 1954 FIFA Congress in Bern, Switzerland, where Africa was formally recognised as a football confederation.
Representing the African confederation of FIFA, CAF organises runs and regulates national team and club continental competitions annually or biennially such as the Africa Cup of Nations and Women's Africa Cup of Nations, which they control the prize money and broadcast rights to. CAF will be allocated 9 spots at the FIFA World Cup starting from 2026 [FIFA World Cup|2026] and could have an opportunity of 10 spots with the addition of an intercontinental play-off tournament involving 6 teams to decide the last 2 FIFA World Cup places.
The headquarters of CAF were originally located within the offices of the Sudanese Football Association in Khartoum, before being relocated to a site near Cairo, Egypt, following a fire. Youssef Mohamad served as the organisation’s first general secretary, and Abdel Aziz Abdallah Salem was its first president. The current president, Patrice Motsepe of South Africa, was first elected unopposed on 12 March 2021 in elections held in Rabat, Morocco.
History
Anthem
CAF launched a competition for all African composers to create its anthem without lyrics to reflect the cultural patrimony and the music of Africa on 18 September 2007.Leadership
Sources:Members and zones
A total of 54 member associations are part of the Confederation of African Football.Members
Additionally, there are territories located in Africa which are not affiliated with CAF or any other confederation to any extent.- FIFA code: SMD
Competitions
CAF competitions
National teams:;Men
- Africa Cup of Nations
- African Nations League
- U-23 Africa Cup of Nations
- U-20 Africa Cup of Nations
- U-17 Africa Cup of Nations
- CAF African Schools U15 Boy's
- Futsal Africa Cup of Nations
- African Youth Olympic Futsal Qualifying Tournament
- Beach Soccer Africa Cup of Nations
- Women's Africa Cup of Nations
- African [U-20 Women's World Cup qualification]
- African U-17 [Women's World Cup qualification]
- CAF African Schools U15 Girl's
- Women's Futsal Africa Cup of Nations
Clubs:
- CAF Super Cup
- CAF Champions League
- CAF Confederation Cup
- CAF Women's Champions League
- CAF U-20 Women's Champions League
Regional:
;Defunct
Inter Continental:
;Defunct
Shortly after formation, CAF organised the Africa Cup of Nations in 1957 and it has since become its flagship competition. Faced with undisclosed decline in popularity of local competitions and the mass exodus of homegrown footballers to Europe, Asia and the Americas in the 1990s and early 2000s, CAF launched the African Nations Championship on 11 September 2007 and began organisation two years later, to address this issue. CAF also organises qualification tournaments/competitions for the FIFA U-20 World Cup and the FIFA U-17 World Cup for its member associations; both of which initially began on a home-and-away two-legged basis but has since 1995 been organised in appointed host countries as respectively the Under-20 and U-17 Africa Cup of Nations.
For women's football operates competitions which currently serve as qualification tournaments for the related FIFA-organised tournaments which launched at the exact same year they began formation. The flagship African women's football competition/tournament is the Women's Africa Cup of Nations, which launched in 1991 as the African Women's Championship and was known in the mass media between 2015 and 2021 as the Africa/African Women/Women's Cup of Nations, which currently qualifies 4 teams to the FIFA Women's World Cup. CAF also organises qualification matches for "promising future female footballers" at both the Under-20 and Under-17 levels, launched in 2002 and 2008 respectively, both of which crowns no champions but instead qualifies 2 teams to compete at the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup and the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup respectively.
Club
For African clubs, CAF runs the CAF Men's and Women's Champions League, the CAF Confederation Cup, the CAF Super Cup and the African Schools Football Championship for both males and females. First held in 1964 as the African Cup of Champions Clubs and rebranded in 1997 as the CAF Champions League, this football club competition currently features the champions of top-division leagues of CAF member associations and the runners-up teams of the league classifications of member associations the top 12 ranked national associations as documented by the CAF 5-year ranking system.A currently-former competition, the African Cup Winners' Cup, commenced in 1975 for national cup winners of member associations and a third currently-former competition, the CAF Cup, launched in 1992 for African teams who finished below the top 2 positions of the league classifications of member associations and haven't met any criteria for qualification to any CAF competition. CAF decided to merge these two competitions together to form the current second-tier CAF Confederation Cup in 2004, and it currently incorporates the participation of national cup winners from the Cup Winners' Cup, whiles maintaining the format of the participation of teams who finished 3rd in the top-division league classifications of the 12 highest-ranked member associations as documented by the CAF 5-Year Ranking system from the CAF Cup. It is also ranked below the CAF Champions League.
The winners of the CAF Champions League play the winners of the African Cup Winners' Cup until 2004 and the CAF Confederation Cup thereafter in the CAF Super Cup which was launched in 1993.
The Afro-Asian Club Championship was an annual football match jointly organised between CAF and the Asian Football Confederation between the winners of the CAF Champions League and the winners of the AFC Champions League between 1987 and 1999.
The CAF Women's Champions League was announced and approved on 30 June 2020, launched on 12 September that year and began contesting the following year, i.e. 2021. It features women's national league and cup winners nvolving the champions of CAF's sub-confederation qualification tournaments for women's club teams.
Current title holders
Competition winners
Sponsorship
In October 2004, South African telecommunications giant, MTN, contracted a 4-year deal to sponsor CAF competitions worth US$12.5 million, which was the biggest sponsorship deal in African sporting history at that time.CAF opened new sponsorship callouts when MTN's contract expired and French telecommunications giant Orange scooped it up in July 2009, signing an 8-year comprehensive long-term undisclosed deal to sponsor CAF competitions with a value of €100 million.
On 21 July 2016, French energy and petroleum giant, Total S.A., replaced Orange as the main sponsor with an 8-year sponsorship package from CAF for a value of €950 million to support its competitions. Total rebranded as TotalEnergies on 28 May 2021.
The current main CAF sponsors are:
- 1xBet
- TikTok
- TotalEnergies
- Orange
FIFA World Rankings
Overview
Historical leaders
Men
| Year | First | Second | Third | Fourth |
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| 2025 |
;All time No. 1
ImageSize = width:160 height:1800
PlotArea = left:40 right:0 bottom:10 top:10
- Just short of the date the next version of the FIFA World Ranking will be released
DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy
Period = from:08/08/1993 till:$enddate
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical format:yyyy
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:1994
- Colors for teams
id:Algeria value:rgb
id:Cameroon value:rgb
id:CapeVerde value:rgb
id:Egypt value:rgb
id:IvoryCoast value:rgb
id:Ghana value:rgb
id:Morocco value:rgb
id:Nigeria value:rgb
id:Senegal value:rgb
id:SouthAfrica value:rgb
id:Tunisia value:rgb
id:Zambia value:rgb
- A line at the right side of the graph
from:08/08/1993 till:end atpos:65 color:black width:0.5
- Setup text and color to use in the labeled bars
Define $labelCameroon = text:"Cameroon" color:Cameroon
Define $labelCapeVerde = text:"Cape Verde" color:CapeVerde
Define $labelEgypt = text:"Egypt" color:Egypt
Define $labelIvoryCoast = text:"Ivory Coast" color:IvoryCoast
Define $labelGhana = text:"Ghana" color:Ghana
Define $labelMorocco = text:"Morocco" color:Morocco
Define $labelNigeria = text:"Nigeria" color:Nigeria
Define $labelSenegal = text:"Senegal" color:Senegal
Define $labelSouthAfrica = text:"South Africa" color:SouthAfrica
Define $labelTunisia = text:"Tunisia" color:Tunisia
Define $labelZambia = text:"Zambia" color:Zambia
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bar:Leaders width:26 mark:
from:08/08/1993 till:25/07/1995 shift: $labelNigeria
from:25/07/1995 till:22/08/1995 shift: $labelTunisia
from:22/08/1995 till:19/09/1995 shift: $labelEgypt
from:19/09/1995 till:17/10/1995 shift: $labelNigeria
from:17/10/1995 till:21/11/1995 shift: $labelEgypt
from:21/11/1995 till:19/12/1995 shift: $labelTunisia
from:19/12/1995 till:24/01/1996 shift: $labelIvoryCoast
from:24/01/1996 till:21/02/1996 shift: $labelGhana
from:21/02/1996 till:22/05/1996 shift: $labelZambia
from:24/04/1996 till:22/05/1996 shift: color:Ghana width:11 text:"Ghana / Zambia"
from:22/05/1996 till:18/12/1996 shift: $labelZambia
from:18/12/1996 till:27/02/1997 shift: $labelSouthAfrica
from:27/02/1997 till:14/05/1997 shift: $labelZambia
from:14/05/1997 till:16/02/2000 shift: $labelMorocco
from:16/02/2000 till:18/07/2001 shift: $labelSouthAfrica
from:18/07/2001 till:13/02/2002 shift: $labelTunisia
from:13/02/2002 till:06/10/2004 shift: $labelCameroon
from:06/10/2004 till:15/06/2005 shift: $labelNigeria
from:15/06/2005 till:20/07/2005 shift: $labelCameroon
from:20/07/2005 till:12/09/2005 shift: $labelEgypt
from:12/09/2005 till:21/11/2005 shift: $labelCameroon
from:17/10/2005 till:21/11/2005 shift: color:Nigeria width:11 text:"Cameroon / Nigeria"
from:21/11/2005 till:15/02/2006 shift: $labelCameroon
from:15/02/2006 till:14/02/2007 shift: $labelNigeria
from:14/02/2007 till:19/09/2007 shift: $labelCameroon
from:19/09/2007 till:13/02/2008 shift: $labelNigeria
from:13/02/2008 till:04/06/2008 shift: $labelGhana
from:04/06/2008 till:01/07/2009 shift: $labelCameroon
from:01/07/2009 till:16/10/2009 shift: $labelIvoryCoast
from:16/10/2009 till:03/02/2010 shift: $labelCameroon
from:03/02/2010 till:02/02/2011 shift: $labelEgypt
from:02/02/2011 till:29/06/2011 shift: $labelGhana
from:29/06/2011 till:05/06/2014 shift: $labelIvoryCoast
from:05/06/2014 till:05/11/2015 shift: $labelAlgeria
from:05/11/2015 till:03/03/2016 shift: $labelIvoryCoast
from:03/03/2016 till:07/04/2016 shift: $labelCapeVerde
from:07/04/2016 till:15/09/2016 shift: $labelAlgeria
from:15/09/2016 till:24/11/2016 shift: $labelIvoryCoast
from:24/11/2016 till:09/02/2017 shift: $labelSenegal
from:09/02/2017 till:16/10/2017 shift: $labelEgypt
from:16/10/2017 till:23/11/2017 shift: $labelTunisia
from:23/11/2017 till:18/01/2018 shift: $labelSenegal
from:18/01/2018 till:20/09/2018 shift: $labelTunisia
from:16/08/2018 till:20/09/2018 shift: color:Senegal width:11 text:"Senegal / Tunisia"
from:20/09/2018 till:29/11/2018 shift: $labelTunisia
from:29/11/2018 till:22/12/2022 shift: $labelSenegal
from:22/12/2022 till:end shift: $labelMorocco
Women
| Year | First | Second | Third | Fourth |
| 2003 | ||||
| 2004 | ||||
| 2005 | ||||
| 2006 | ||||
| 2007 | ||||
| 2008 | ||||
| 2009 | ||||
| 2010 | ||||
| 2011 | ||||
| 2012 | ||||
| 2013 | ||||
| 2014 | ||||
| 2015 | ||||
| 2016 | ||||
| 2017 | ||||
| 2018 | ||||
| 2019 | ||||
| 2020 | ||||
| 2021 | ||||
| 2022 | ||||
| 2023 | ||||
| 2024 |
;All time No. 1
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bar:Leaders width:25 mark: align:left fontsize:S
from:01/01/2003 till:27/09/2024 shift: text:"Nigeria" color:NGA
Other rankings
CAF overall ranking of African clubs by titles
The following clubs are the top 10 clubs in CAF competitions.| Pos | Club | Titles | Trophies won | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 |  Non-CAF competitionThe 1982 African Super Cup is a match which took place on 25 January 1982 during the Tournament of Fraternity in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The Kabyles of JS Kabylie won this trophy against the Cameroonians of Union Douala.By countryThe following table lists all the countries whose clubs have won at least one CAF competition. Egyptian clubs are the most successful, with a total of 44 titles. Egyptian clubs hold a record number of wins in the African Cup of Champions Clubs/CAF Champions League, the now-defunct African Cup Winners' Cup, the CAF Super Cup and the now-defunct Afro-Asian Club Championship, followed by Tunisian clubs with 24 titles and they have the most victories in the now-defunct CAF Cup and Moroccan clubs have secured also 24 titles with the most victories in the CAF Confederation Cup.;Key:
CAF overall ranking of African clubsRankings are calculated by the CAF based on points gathered by African teams throughout their participation in international club tournaments organised by either CAF themselves or FIFA since the establishment of the first African Cup of Champions Clubs in 1964.
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