The top 10 African clubs in the CAF rankings have confirmed after the 2022/23 CAF Champions League concluded on Sunday, with Mamelodi Sundowns in fourth place.
Record winners Al Ahly beat defending champions Wydad Athletic Club 3-2 on aggregate after collecting a hard-fought 1-1 draw in Casablanca on Sunday.
As a consequence, it doesn’t surprise that both teams sit in first and second place in the updated CAF inter-club ranking, which takes performances in the CAF Champions League and CAF Confederations Cup over the last five season into account, meaning from 2018/19 to 2022/23.
Winners of the CAF Champions League receive six points, in this case Al Ahly, while runners-up Wydad got five points. Esperance and Sundowns, 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 USM Alger receiving five points, runners-up Yanga got four points, the semi-finalists three points, quarter-finalists two points, group stage third-placed teams one point and group stage bottom-placed teams 0.5 points.
How does the overall points allocation work?
It’s simple, for the 2022/23 season, all points collected 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 2021/22, three for 2020/21, two 2019/20 and just one for 2018/19.
As a consequence, Al Ahly collected 30 points (6×5) in 2022/23, Wydad 25 (5×5) and Sundowns and Esperance got 20 (5×4), while CAF Confederations Cup winners USM Alger received 25 (5×5).
Below are the top 10 based on this ranking system, which takes into account all points collected over the last five CAF inter-club season, with Orlando Pirates dropping out of the top 10.
- Al Ahly (Egypt) – 83 points
- Wydad AC (Morocco) – 74 points
- Esperance (Tunisia) – 56 points
- Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa) – 51 points
- Raja CA (Morocco) – 51 points
- Zamalek (Egypt) – 39 points
- RS Berkane (Morocco) – 37 points
- CR Belouizdad (Algeria) – 36 points
- Simba SC (Tanzania) – 35 points
- Pyramids (Egypt) – 35 points
Story by David Kappel (@kappilinho).
