The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced on Tuesday the dates for the start of the associations’ club competitions for the 2021/22 season in addition to some regulations to be applied on games for next term.
CAF competitions have seen several delays and confusion in dates in the past couple of years after the outbreak of coronavirus in early 2020 which caused the 2020/21 competition to be postponed.
The African association had proposed new starting and ending dates for the club competitions and tournaments were scheduled to be concluded in June 2020.
However, the suspension of football action all over the world caused the competition to conclude in November when Al Ahly triumphed last season’s edition.
The 2021 edition’s final is set to be played on July 17, 2021.
CAF has released a statement announcing that the 2022 competitions, Champions League and Confederation Cup, will start in September 2021 with the qualifying rounds.
The group stages will start in February 2022.
CAF also added that the temporarily introduced five substitutions rule will be extended to next season to continue for the third season in a row.
Additionally, each club will be allowed to register 40 players in their respective squads instead of 30 with every team authorized to keep up to nine players on the bench per game instead of seven.
The 12 highest ranked national associations, according to the ranking of CAF, will be allowed to engage two clubs in the Total Energies CAF Champions league 2021/22 and the Total Energies CAF Confederation Cup 2021/22.
The countries are (according to their ranking) Algeria, Angola, RD Congo, Egypt, Guinea, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Zambia.
CAF has extended the five substitutions per rule for the 2021/22 Interclub season. Accordingly, each club will be allowed to register 40 players instead of the regulatory 30. Nine substitutes will be allowed on the bench instead of the regular seven.
The registration of players on the CAF CMS has been extended to 15 August 2021.
CAF Interclub Schedule: 2021/2022
– First Preliminary Round (1st Leg/2nd Leg) 10-12 September / 17-19 September 2021
– Second Preliminary Round (1st Leg/2nd Leg) 15-17 October / 22-24 October 2021
CC Additional
– Second Preliminary Round (1st Leg/2nd Leg) 26-28 November, 3-5 December 2021
– Group stage MD1: 11-13 February 2022
– Group stage MD2: 18-20 February 2022
– Group stage MD3: 25-27 February 2022
– Group stage MD4: 11-13 March 2022
– Group stage MD5: 18-20 March 2022
– Group stage MD6: 1-3 April 2022
– Quarter-Finals (1st Leg/2nd Leg) 15-17 April 2022/22-24 April 2022
– Semi-Finals (1st Leg/2nd Leg) 6-8 May 2022/13-15 May 2022
– Finals: TBC from 22 to 29 May 2022
