African Super League: Big on promise, not plan

This time for Africa. Patrice Motsepe is sure that is what the new Africa Super League will mean for the continent whose most recognised export is footballers. And he has FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who steadfastly opposed a similar idea in Europe, in his corner. The details are sketchy and the full plan has not been shared by Motsepe, president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and South Africa’s first black billionaire, who also owns the top South African team Mamelodi Sundowns.

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Here’s what we know. The super league will be a third club competition after the Champions League and the Confederations Cup. It will have 24 teams, a maximum of three from each country, in three groups and a total prize pool of $100m with the winners getting $11.6m. That is more than double of the $5m Senegal received for winning the Africa Cup of Nations and almost five times of what Morocco’s Wydad got for their third Champions League ($2.5m)—it is a competition where those not making the round of 16 get no share of the prize money—in 2021-22. Each participating club will get $2.5m to play the 197-match tournament scheduled to start in August 2023 and run till May 2024. And each of CAF’s 54 affiliates will be assured of $1m. CAF has projected earnings of $200m of which $50m would be used to fund grassroots and the women’s game, it has said.

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Here’s what hasn’t been disclosed. Will the competition be truly representative of the continent or lopsided in favour of North African countries which have won 10 of the past 12 iterations of the Champions League? Initial reports suggest that 21 clubs will be chosen on the basis of their CAF rankings and the rest given wild card slots. A total of 16 countries will be represented.

There are other questions. Won’t the competition undermine the Champions League whose winners get a berth in the FIFA Club World Cup? Will there be promotion and relegation? Most importantly, where will the money come from in an organisation that reported losses of $44.6 million in 2020-21 and whose 12-year deal with commercial partners was worth $1 billion.

Infantino’s support

Finally, why is Infantino backing this and not the one in Europe which is sub judice now? The answer to the last one possibly is: it was the clubs that were planning a league among the elite; here CAF is doing the proposing. Also, football in Africa doesn’t have a fraction of the kind of money available in Europe: the European Champions League has a total prize fund of $2 billion; Liverpool made $92.5m for making the final. Players in Kenya, according to goal.com in 2021, earned an average of $800 a month; those in Ghana $1000 and Nigeria $1200. (It is not difficult to understand why so many Africans want to play in the Indian Super League). On the higher side are those who play in South Africa’s Premier Soccer League (between $7000 to $8500 per month) and Morocco ($7000).

So the ostensible reason for Infantino backing the league is to give football a leg up in a continent from where approximately 500 players are in Europe. “We have to take the 20 best African clubs and put them in an African league. Such a league could make at least $200m in revenue, which would put it among the top 10 in the world,” Infantino said in 2019. Earlier in August, at CAF’s general assembly in Arusha, Tanzania, he said: "It is a project that will make African club football shine ... beyond Africa as well."

Motsepe agreed. “The African Super League represents the very best on the continent and we have seen a big appetite from investors to be involved in this project,” he said in Arusha.

“We will also explain to domestic competitions how this will affect their fixtures. At the end of the day, the future of club football is based on commercial competitiveness. The face of African football will never be the same again…. My objective is to get money for football infrastructure, for players, club owners, stakeholders. We are talking about anything between $250m to $300m every year."

For and against

The move has its backers. The solidarity fund of $1m will help nations bridge the gap with those in North Africa, Barbara Gonzalez, chief executive of Tanzanian club Simba, told BBC. South African heavyweights Kaizer Chiefs are guarded but Cape Town City owner John Comitis has pulled no punches. “You can switch off the lights on the domestic leagues,” he said.

South African Football Players Union president Thulaganyo Gaoshubelwe has spoken of games overload and asked how it is being expected that money would rain on this when there is a dearth of sponsors for the Champions League and Confederations Cup.

“There is no evidence that an African Super League will benefit soccer in Africa unless benefitting the very few while diluting the value of the professional leagues considered beneficial,” he wrote on their website.

It is true that there isn’t enough money in the club game in Africa. Clubs often spend most of what they earn on travel and bonuses and we are talking about the champions here. That leads to players being sold cheap to Europe. It is not clear yet how the super league will change that.

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