Ahmed Yahya, Chairman of the CAF Club Competitions Committee
In an exclusive interview with the Egyptians Abroad newspaper:
Ahmed Yahya, Chairman of the CAF Club Competitions Committee
In an exclusive interview with the Egyptians Abroad newspaper:
Conduct the interview / Mahmoud Darwish
There is no comparison between the new African Super League and the European Super League!
“The official in charge of the African Championships speaks
The site, Egyptians Abroad, presented the President of the Mauritanian Football Association and Vice-President of the Confederation of African Football with the following:
“Ahmed Yahya is the man of the future in African football. Under his leadership, the Mauritanian Federation moved from being suspended internationally by FIFA to playing the first African Cup in its history in 2019. He is now the Chairman of the CAF Club Competitions Committee and one of his first tasks will be to form a league project The African Super League, which was officially approved by the CAF Executive Committee, held last weekend in Morocco.This Super League project has been approved by Patrice Motsepe, President of the Confederation of African Football since March, and Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA.
In his answer to the website’s question about the definition of the African Super League, Ould Yahya said:
“It is a project that aims to create a new African club competition that arouses the enthusiasm and passion of fans in Africa, but is also able to attract the attention of fans on other continents. By creating a competition that is of interest to TV channels and sponsors, and thus, unlike what is happening in current competitions This new competition will allow African clubs to retain and benefit from the continent’s talent within Africa for a much longer period of time than we are currently doing.”
In response to the site’s question about the fate of the two current African Union championships; The two are the African Champions League and the Confederation Cup, in light of the introduction of the new tournament; Ould Yahya explained:
“I think that we can launch the Super League, along with the current two championships, and in a way, we can maintain the current two competitions. In any case, the discussion of this will be part of the analysis and studies that we will do in the near future.”
On the differences between the African Super League and the European Super League, Ould Yahya said:
“In Europe, the project was announced outside the official football structure, and this constituted an open conflict between the project’s launchers and UEFA, while the African Super League will be established within the official football structures on the continent, with full respect to the football pyramid, and the project’s goal is Helping African football clubs to grow and develop, or even survive in some cases of certain clubs, providing them with financial stability to continue their valuable work to develop the young talents of the continent and raise their level to a higher stage.”
On the requirements that clubs wishing to participate in, the Vice-President of the Confederation of African Football said:
“This will be one of the advantages of the CAF Super League: to ensure that it is able to establish good practices and requirements that will ultimately benefit football across the continent. The details of these requirements will crystallize in the coming months, but they will always relate to the teams’ need to invest in stadiums, infrastructure, training, women’s football, adequate training facilities, transparent financial management, training and sustainable budgets.”
On FIFA President Infantino’s support for the project in Africa and its rejection in Europe; Ould Yahya revealed:
“The debate started some time ago, but it was always up to the leaders of African football themselves to think and decide what they would do. It is our duty as leaders to have these discussions openly and transparently. We have to see, analyze and decide what is best for our sport.
As to what Mr. Gianni Infantino thinks, he has already said on several occasions (and I fully agree with him) that we cannot compare the project that emerged in Europe with the African project; Because the African Super League is completely different from the European project; We have seen that our current competitions, despite their prestige, are losing year after year, and that the best talents of our clubs leave Africa at the first opportunity to play in Europe, even if it is in a second-tier team, or even in the third tier sometimes, and this What cannot – and we are not satisfied – continue in this way.”
A Mauritanian club in the Super League?!
The newspaper asked its guest, saying: “You have presided over the Mauritanian Federation with great success, and completely changed football in your country, and the successes came with you to the fore. Do you expect the same thing to happen to you in this continental task that you are addressing now? And do you think that a Mauritanian club will be able to Par