After the 2024/25 CAF interclub season, Al Ahly have remained in top spot of the African Club ranking, while Mamelodi Sundowns made a jump from fourth to second.
Masandawana remain the only Premier Soccer League club in the top 10, which are dominated by three Egyptian sides.
Al Ahly remained in first place despite missing out on this year’s final, followed by Sundowns in second. The Betway Premiership champions have overtaken ES Tunis, who dropped into third, and Wydad AC who fell into eighth after a year with no CAF football.
CAF Confederations Cup champions RS Berkan and Fadlu Davids’ Simba SC complete the top five after their brilliant runs in Africa’s secondary inter-club competition.
New CAF Champions League winners Pyramids climbed from 15th into sixth place after securing their first star. Zamalek, Wydad, and Algerian duo USM Alger and CR Belouizdad complete the top 10.
- Al Ahly (Egypt) – 78 points
- Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa) – 62 points
- Esperance (Tunisia) – 57 points
- RS Berkane (Morocco) – 52 points
- Simba SC (Tanzania) – 48 points
- Pyramids (Egypt) – 47 points
- Zamalek (Egypt) – 42 points
- Wydad AC (Morocco) – 39 points
- USM Alger (Algeria) – 37 points
- CR Belouizdad (Algeria) – 36 points
How does the ranking work?
For the new calculation of the CAF ranking, points collected over the last five years between 2019/20 and 2024/25 must be used.
All points collected for the 2024/25 season will be multiplied by five, while this coefficient goes down by one the further season you go back – meaning a multiplication of four for points in 2023/24, three for 2022/23, two 2021/22 and just one for 2020/21.
The winners of the CAF Champions League receive six points, in this case Pyramids, while runners-up Sundowns got five points. Al Ahly and Orlando Pirates, who were beaten in the semi-finals, received four points, respectively. The quarter-finalists got three points, while all teams finishing in third spot in the group stages got two, and the fourth-placed teams got just one.
Meanwhile, the points allocation for the CAF Confederations Cup is similar, with winners RS Berkane receiving five points, runners-up Simba got four points, the semi-finalists Stellenbosch FC and CS Constantine get three points, the quarter-finalists two points, the group stage third-placed teams one point and the group stage bottom-placed teams 0.5 points.
As a consequence, Pyramids collected 30 points (6×5) in 2024/25, Sundowns 25 points (5×5), Ahly and Pirates 20 points (5×4), while CAF Confederations Cup winners Berkane received 25 points (5×5). Points collected in 2019/20 fell out of the five-year cycle.
Sundowns’ overall tally is calculated by 3×1 (2020/21), plus 3×2 (2021/22), plus 4×3 (2022/23), plus 4×4 (2023/24), plus 5×5 (2024/25), equalling to 62 points overall.
Story by David Kappel (@kappilinho).
