CAF Confederation Cup
Rival Rwandan Fans Hail Rivers United
BY: SAMMY WEJINYA
Fans of Rwandan club, Armée Patriotique Rwandaise Football Club (APR), local rivals of Rivers United’s Confederation Cup opponents, Rayon Sports on Friday stormed the Amahoro Stadium, Kigali to cheer players of Nigerian club, Rivers United ahead of Saturday’s match.
As Rivers United held a training session at the Amahoro Stadium ahead of the decisive second leg game, the fans, numbering well over a thousand, were in full voice, singing local songs and chanting, ‘Rivers! Rivers!
APR and Rayon Sports are bitter rivals domestically with fans of either club known to support opponents of their foes. Eric Ravi, a well-known fan of APR, explained that Rivers United will receive ‘massive support’ from APR fans who are eager to see Rayon Sports eliminated from the 2017 CAF Confederation Cup.
“We (fans of Rayon Sports) will give massive support to Rivers United (on Saturday) because we don’t want Rayon to reach the group stage of the competition,” Ravi told supersport.com.
A female supporter of Rayon who simply identified herself as ‘Shaka’ however stated that the majority of the support on Saturday will be for Rayon.
“Of course, there will be some fans of APR who will support Rivers United on Saturday but I can tell you that the majority of the fans at the Amahoro Stadium on match day will be rooting for Rayon Sports.
“Rayon Sports is the club of the common man in Rwanda and as such, the people identify with the club.
“Rivers United will lose on Saturday and it will be a victory for the people of Rwanda,” Shaka declared. Rivers United defeated Rayon Sports 2-0 in the first leg of the playoff tie in Port Harcourt last Sunday.
CAF Confederation Cup
CAF adjudges Morocco’s Youssef Mehri’s goal as the fastest in football history
Moroccan club, Renaissance de Berkane, beat their Algerian counterparts, CS Constantine, 4-0 in the first leg of the CAF Confederation Cup semi-finals at the weekend.
The game got off to a dream start for the Moroccan club as it took Youssef Mehri less than a minute to open the scoring in the big win against the Algerians.
Officially, the goal is recorded to have been scored after 13 seconds.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), CAF remarks: “Youssef Mehri goes straight into the history books. The RS Berkane striker scores the fastest goal ever scored in the CAF Cup.”
A deeper search by Sports Village Square indicates that a Nigerian player, Paul Onuachu, had previously scored a faster goal, but not in a CAF Cup duel.
The basketball player-like footballer scored his first international goal in a 1-0 defeat of Egypt on 26 March 2019.
The goal inflicted Nigeria’s first defeat on Egypt in 29 years. But more significant was the timing of the goal. Onuachu, within eight seconds of kick-off, undoubtedly entered the record books as the second fastest goal in international football records after that of Germany’s Lukas Podolsk, who scored after six seconds in a friendly against Ecuador in 2013.
Fans had hardly settled down at the Stephen Keshi Stadium in Asaba for the Nigeria versus Egypt match when Onuachu released a thunderous shot that turned out to be the match’s decider.
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The Renaissance Sportive de Berkane delegation will travel to Algeria this Friday to face CS Constantine in the CAF Cup. Tension may be building up for the potentially explosive confrontation that could have a build-up from last year’s fixtures of the Moroccan club and another Algerian outfit, USM Algiers, in the CAF Confederation Cup.
A Moroccan news outlet, Sport.le360, reports that a Tunisian airline will operate the direct flight between Oujda-Angad Airport, which is located about 12 kilometres north of Oujda and about 600 kilometres northeast of Casablanca, near the Algerian border and Constantine Mohamed Boudiaf International Airport.
Last year, political differences between Morocco and Algeria scuttled similar semi-final clashes between clubs of both countries.
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The Court of Arbitration for Sport on Wednesday ruled in favour of the Algerian football federation in a row over a map of Morocco on shirts worn by Renaissance Berkane in the 2024 CAF Confederation Cup.
Algerian club USM Alger were kicked out of last year’s competition after both legs of their semi-final against Berkane were cancelled because of a diplomatic dispute.
Neither match took place as USMA and the Algerian authorities objected to a map of Morocco on the Berkane shirts which included Western Sahara.
Algeria cut diplomatic ties with North African neighbours Morocco in 2021, partly over the Western Sahara issue.
The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco but claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks the territory’s independence.
The Confederation of African Football awarded Berkane a 3-0 victory for both legs of the semi-final.
CAF at the time responded to an appeal by the Algerian FA by ruling in favour of Berkane, saying the club had been wearing the same jerseys since the start of the tournament.
But the Algerian FA took the case to sport’s highest court in Switzerland, which determined that the shirts in question were “contrary to CAF regulations, as they display a territorial map that is of a political nature.”
“The image of a map of Morocco including Western Sahara on the shirts of RS Berkane depicts a message, a demonstration or propaganda of a political nature as it represents the assertion of a territorial dispute that is contested and still unresolved as of today,” CAS said in a statement.
“By the laws of the game of the International Football Association Board, it is prohibited to convey any content of a political nature on all equipment, including shirts.”
CAS added that the initial decision by CAF to “maintain the approval of the shirts is annulled”, but the court said that it would have no effect on the results of the tournament.
Egypt’s Zamalek beat Berkane on away goals in the final.
-AFP
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