Connect with us

CAF Confederation Cup

Rangers Face Star-Studded Zesco

Published

on

BY KUNLE SOLAJA.

When Nigerian champions, Enugu Rangers line out on Sunday to face Zesco United, they will virtually playing against a combined national teams of Zambia and Kenya.
At least, six of Zesco United players feature for the nationals teams. In the defence line will be Fackson Kapumbu who featured against Super Eagles in the last October World Cup qualifier. He also featured in the left wingback when Zambia were held to 1-1 draw last November by current African champions, Cameroon.
Another player to watch out for is ageing Winston Kalengo. Investigation reveals that the 31 year old has stayed very long in the domestic league of Zambia. In his 11 season in the top Zambian league division, he had scored over 103 goals.
Rangers’ defenders will have to watch out for his strength in the penalty box as his acceleration when next to a defender is terrific. He was in the team that faced the Super Eagles last year.
Zesco goalkeeper, Jacob Banda was on the bench as reserve for Kennedy Mweene when Nigeria faced Zambia last year.
Eyes must also be on Kondwani Mtonga who has been a Chipolopolo player for eight years running. He came in as a substitute in the match lost to Nigeria last year.
Apart from that quartet who are Zambian national team players, there are also the trio Harambee of Kenya stars. These are Anthony Akumu, David “Calabar” Owino and Jesse Were. The trio are in the current national team of Kenya.

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

Continue Reading
Advertisement

CAF Confederation Cup

Morocco’s  RS Berkane get to Confederation Cup final with record aggregate scoreline but without kicking the ball!

Published

on

The CAF Interclub Competitions and Management of the Club Licensing System Committee has awarded the unplayed Confederation Cup  second leg semi-final fixture between RS Berkane and USM Alger to Morocco’s RS Berkane.

The same decision was taken on the unplayed first leg match in Algeria. Thus, without having to kick the ball, RS Berkane moved to the final matches, technically with a 6-0 aggregate, the highest semi-final scorelines since the competition began 20 years ago.

According to  the CAF Inter-clubs committee, the case  against Algeria’s USM Alger has been passed to the Disciplinary Board of CAF for possible additional sanctions.

Continue Reading

CAF Confederation Cup

USM Alger’s coach  resigns over jersey controversy

Published

on

Spanish coach Juan Carlos Garrido has announced his resignation from coaching Algerian club USM Alger, Moroccan channel Medi1 TV reported. Garrido made the announcement in an exclusive statement to the channel.

Garrido’s decision comes after the African Football Confederation’s club committee announced the elimination of USM Alger from the CAF Confederation Cup. 

The Algerian team decided to withdraw from the second leg game of the CAF Confederation Cup semi-final against Morocco’s RS Berkane last week.

As a result, CAF penalized USM Alger with a forfeit, awarding RS Berkane a 3-0 victory by default and securing their place in the tournament’s final against Egyptian club Zamalek.

This comes in the wake of a controversy that began when Algerian authorities confiscated RS Berkane’s equipment after they landed in Algiers for the first leg of their semi-final match against USM Alger. 

Advertisement

The Algerian authorities notably confiscated the Moroccan club’s jerseys for featuring the full Moroccan map with the Western Sahara region. 

Despite efforts by CAF to mediate the issue and assert the legitimacy of RS Berkane’s jerseys, the Algerian authorities refused to return the confiscated items.

This resulted in the match’s abandonment and CAF declaring RS Berkane winners of the first leg with a 3-0 scoreline.

In the subsequent second leg, scheduled to take place in Morocco, USM Alger opted to withdraw from the match, further fueling the controversy. 

CAF subsequently penalized USM Alger with a forfeit, awarding RS Berkane a 3-0 victory and eliminating the Algerian team from the tournament.

Advertisement

Medi1 TV reported Garrido as indicating that he had no direct involvement in the jersey controversy and that his primary concern was solely focused on football matters. 

The report added that the coach had expressed disapproval of the events surrounding the jersey dispute and emphasized his dedication to the game and his discomfort with being embroiled in off-field controversies.

-Morocco World News

Continue Reading

CAF Confederation Cup

Further CAF Sanctions await USM Alger and Algerian Football Federation

Published

on

964a86a6-motsepe.jpg

With the last minute withdrawal of USM Alger from the second leg match of the CAF Confederation Cup semi-final against Morocco’s RS Berkane, the Algerian club and the federation will be expecting further sanctions from CAF.

The Algerian team arrived Morocco on Friday for the Sunday scheduled match.

But on match day, first they failed to show up for the traditional warm-up preceding a match and eventually refused to play the match ostensibly on the instruction of the Algerian football federation.

The bone of contention is the outline Morocco map on the RS Berkane jerseys.

According to CAF regulations, “a withdrawal declared by a team after having qualified for the quarter-final and semi-final matches entails, in addition to the loss of the right of entry, a fine of fifty thousand (50,000) US dollars,”

Advertisement

In addition: “any team withdrawing from the competition after the calendar has been established will be prohibited from participating in all CAF interclub competitions for the next two editions following the edition of its withdrawal.”

Furthermore the regulations state: “in the event of a team’s withdrawal, its federation will be responsible for the financial and other consequences to be determined by the Interclub Commission and/or the CAF disciplinary jury”.

Continue Reading

Most Viewed