The CAF Champions League, known for sponsorship purposes as the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League and formerly the African Cup of Champions Clubs, is an annual club football competition organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and contested by top-division African clubs, deciding the competition winners through a round robin group stage to qualify for a double-legged knockout stage, and then a home and away final. It is the most prestigious club competition in African football.
The winner of each season of the competition earns a berth for the FIFA Club World Cup, faces the winner of the CAF Confederation Cup in the following season's CAF Super Cup and from 2024 onwards, along with the next 4 best teams, a place in the new FIFA Intercontinental Cup. Clubs that finish as runners-up their national leagues, having not qualified for the Champions League, are eligible for the second-tier CAF Confederation Cup.
Egyptian clubs have the highest number of victories (19 titles), followed by Morocco with 7. Egypt also has the largest number of winning teams, with four clubs having won the title. The competition has been won by 26 clubs, 12 of which have won it more than once. Al Ahly is the most successful club in the competition's history, having it a record 12 times. The current champions are Mamelodi Sundowns, having beaten AS FAR 2–1 on aggregate in the 2026 final.
History + List of winners Season Winners African Cup of Champions Clubs 1965 Oryx Douala 1966 Stade d'Abidjan 1967 TP Englebert 1968 TP Englebert 1969 Ismaily 1970 Asante Kotoko 1971 Canon Yaoundé 1972 Hafia FC 1973 AS Vita Club 1974 CARA Brazzaville 1975 Hafia FC 1976 MC Alger 1977 Hafia FC 1978 Canon Yaoundé 1979 Union Douala 1980 Canon Yaoundé 1981 JE Tizi Ouzou 1982 Al Ahly 1983 Asante Kotoko 1984 Zamalek 1985 FAR Rabat 1986 Zamalek 1987 Al Ahly 1988 Entente de Sétif 1989 Raja CA 1990 JS Kabylie 1991 Club Africain 1992 Wydad AC 1993 Zamalek 1994 Espérance de Tunis 1995 Orlando Pirates 1996 Zamalek CAF Champions League 1997 Raja CA 1998 ASEC Mimosas 1999 Raja CA 2000 Hearts of Oak 2001 Al Ahly 2002 Zamalek 2003 Enyimba 2004 Enyimba 2005 Al Ahly 2006 Al Ahly 2007 Étoile du Sahel 2008 Al Ahly 2009 TP Mazembe 2010 TP Mazembe 2011 Espérance de Tunis 2012 Al Ahly 2013 Al Ahly 2014 ES Sétif 2015 TP Mazembe 2016 Mamelodi Sundowns 2017 Wydad AC 2018 Espérance de Tunis 2019 Espérance de Tunis 2020 Al Ahly 2021 Al Ahly 2022 Wydad AC 2023 Al Ahly 2024 Al Ahly 2025 Pyramids 2026 Mamelodi Sundowns
Established in 1964 as the African Cup of Champions Clubs and following the lead of UEFA, who created the European Champion Clubs Cup 9 years earlier in 1955, the first team to lift the trophy was Cameroonian team Oryx Douala who beat Stade Malien of Mali 2–1 in a one-off final.
The 1966 edition introduced the two-legged 'home and away' final, which saw another Malian team AS Real Bamako take on Stade d'Abidjan of Ivory Coast. Real Bamako won the home leg 3–1 but it all came apart for them in the away game in Abidjan as the Ivorians went on to win 4–1 to take the title 5–4 on aggregate.
In 1967 when Asante Kotoko of Ghana met TP Mazembe of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (or the DRC for short), both matches ended in draws (1–1 and 2–2 respectively). CAF arranged a play-off, but Kotoko failed to appear and the title was handed to Mazembe, who went on to win the title again the following year.
However, the Ghanaians got their revenge in 1970, when Kotoko and Mazembe once again met in the final. Once again, the first game ended 1–1, but against expectation, the Ghanaians ran out 2–1 winners in their away game to lift the title that had eluded them three years earlier.
The 1970s saw a remarkable rise in the fortunes of Cameroonian club football, which created the platform of success enjoyed by Cameroonian football at international level today.
Between 1971 and 1980 Cameroonian teams won the cup four times, with Canon Yaoundé taking three titles (1971, 1978 and 1980) and US Douala lifting the cup in 1979. In between the Cameroonian victories the honor was shared with another team enjoying a golden age, Guinean side Hafia Conakry, who won it three times during this period (1972, 1975 and 1977)
1997–present: Change of name and rise in reputation Apart from the introduction of the away goals rule, very little changed in this competition until 1997, when CAF under Issa Hayatou took the bold step to follow the lead established a few years earlier by UEFA by creating a league/group stage in the tournament and changing the name to the CAF Champions League (in line with UEFA's own Champions League). CAF also introduced prize money for participants for the first time with the initial offering of US$1 million to the winners and US$750,000 to the runners-up, making the rebranded competition the richest African club competition at the time.
In the new format, the league champions of the respective CAF member countries go through a series of qualification rounds until a round of 16 stage. The 8 winners are then drawn into two groups of 4 teams each, with each team playing each other on a home and away basis. At the end of the league stage, the top team in each group met in the final, in two-legged games (home and away). In the 2001 season, the CAF introduced the semi-final stage after group stage, then the top two teams in each group would meet in the semi-finals, with the winners going through to contest the final.
Beginning with the 2009 season, the prize money increased to $1.5 million for the champions and $1 million for the runner-ups. Since the competition rebranded in 1997, teams from North Africa have come to dominate the competition and its records. Morocco's Raja Casablanca won two of the first three editions, but Al Ahly became the most successful team, winning the 2001, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2012 editions, while Zamalek managed to be champions in 2002. Tunisian teams broke into the winners' circle with Étoile du Sahel winning the 2007 edition after being a losing finalist in 2004 and 2005. For its part, Espérance de Tunis achieved its second continental title in 2011 after having lost in the finals in the 1999, 2000, 2010 and 2012 editions.
Despite the clear dominance of North African teams, Nigerian club Enyimba won their first two titles back-to-back in 2003 and 2004. ASEC Mimosas from Ivory Coast and Accra Hearts of Oak from Ghana added two titles for West Africa, which to date would be the latest of such feats. In 2010, TP Mazembe from the DRC became the first club to repeat as champions on two occasions, with the first pair of wins arriving in 1967 and 1968, before repeating the feat again in 2009 and 2010. In 2017, the group phase was expanded from 2 groups of 4 teams to 4 groups of 16, with the automatic addition of the quarter-finals stage.
The 2020–21 season was played behind closed doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa in line with global football leagues and competitions. Nevertheless, Al Ahly faced bitter rivals Zamalek in an-all Egyptian final (the first time two clubs from the same country compete in any final in the competition's history), with the former emerging victorious and winning its ninth title. Al Ahly successfully defended their title for a record-extending 10th time the following season by beating 10-men Kaizer Chiefs of South Africa, but were unable to secure a 3rd consecutive title in a row and 11th title in 2022 as they were defeated 2–0 by Moroccan club Wydad AC who instead captured their 3rd title. With a return to two-legged finals after a 24-month hiatus owing to the pandemic, Al Ahly roared back, got their revenge the following season and wrestled the title back from Wydad, thus claiming their 11th title in 2023 with a 3–2 aggregate win thanks to forward Mohamed Abdelmoneim's tie-breaking goal and successfully defended it for the second time in the space of half a decade (5 years) in 2024 for a record extending 12th title with a 1–0 aggregate win over Tunisia's Esperance.
With the introduction of the Africa Football League in the 2023–24 season, CAF attempted to establish a new competition to rival the CAF Champions League. However, the Africa Football League failed to generate the same level of popular enthusiasm and only lasted for a single edition. The CAF Champions League remains Africa's premier club competition, boasting the highest prize money on the continent. The 2026 edition was won by South Africa's Mamelodi Sundowns after a decade-long dominance of North African clubs, marking their second CAF Champions League title and first since 2016 after defeating Moroccan side AS FAR in the final.
Structure and qualification
Qualification and allocation The CAF Champions League is open to the champions of all national top-flight leagues affiliated with CAF, as well as the defending Champions League title holders from the previous season.
Starting with the 2004 season — following the merger of the CAF Cup and the African Cup Winners' Cup to create the second-tier CAF Confederation Cup — the runners-up of the domestic leagues from the 12 highest-ranked associations in the CAF 5-year ranking are also granted entry, establishing a 64-team competition field. The 12 associations are determined annually based on the performance of their representative clubs in CAF interclub competitions over the preceding five seasons.
Associations with higher coefficient rankings receive more berths and may receive byes for their clubs to later qualifying stages, as determined by the CAF Organising Committee for Interclub Competitions.
Tournament format The tournament consists of two main phases: the qualifying rounds and the tournament proper (group stage and knockout phase).
Qualifying rounds: The competition begins with two knockout qualification stages played over two legs (home and away)—the preliminary round and the first round. Teams from lower-ranked national associations enter in the preliminary round, while top-ranked clubs enter directly in the first round based on individual club coefficient rankings. Group stage: The 16 winning teams from the first qualifying round advance to the group stage, where they are drawn into four groups of four teams each. Teams play each opponent in their group on a home-and-away round-robin basis (six total matches per club). The group winners and runners-up advance to the knockout stage. Knockout phase: The top eight teams compete in a two-legged knockout bracket starting from the quarter-finals, progressing to the semi-finals and the final. All ties, including the final, are played across two legs on a home-and-away basis.
Tie-breaking and progression rules In two-legged knockout ties, the team that scores the higher aggregate number of goals over both legs qualifies for the next round. If aggregate scores are tied, the away goals rule is applied. If still tied, extra time is omitted and the tie is decided immediately by a penalty shoot-out.
Teams eliminated in the second preliminary round of the CAF Champions League automatically transfer to the play-off round of the CAF Confederation Cup for a second chance at reaching group stage football.
Officiating and technology
Video Assistant Referee (VAR) Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology was first deployed in African continental football during the 2018 CAF Super Cup match between Wydad AC and TP Mazembe in Casablanca.
In November 2018, CAF officially introduced VAR to the CAF Champions League for the first time during the first leg of the 2018 CAF Champions League Final between Al Ahly and Espérance Sportive de Tunis. Following its inaugural rollout, CAF progressively implemented VAR across all quarter-final, semi-final, and final fixtures in subsequent editions before mandating full technological coverage across all group stage and knockout matches.
Qualification to international competitions
CAF Super Cup