Why does the Confederation of African Football (CAF) have to try copy everything done elsewhere in the world?

Sure, the African Cup of Nations is not the only copy - all continents have a bi-annual championship. But the CAF Champions League?

Do you even know it exists? Do you know who won the competition last year? (it was TP Mazembe from the DRC).

Sponsor MTN says proudly that the competition is the equivalent of the UEFA Champions League. Really? Who are they kidding?

Maybe in structure, but definitely not exposure.

Games are not televised all that often (if at all), and I cannot recall even the final getting major exposure annually.

There are a number of problems, the biggest of which is the fact that Africa is three times larger (physically) than Europe. Africa also doesn’t have hundreds of direct flights criss-crossing the continent daily like Europe. This means that teams are forced to travel long distances at very infrequent times.

Teams that win their domestic leagues qualify for the competition as well as the previous Champions League winner. This means a 64 team field to start. It’s a typical knock-out competition, not unlike the UEFA Champions League.

A further difficulty is that the African Champions League usually begins around January and finishes around November. But most African domestic leagues begin around July/August and finish around April/May. This means the competition spans two seasons. Bizarrely many national associations want the competition expanded.

Problem is most teams that compete are complete unknowns. Sure, we’re starting to see various domestic leagues broadcast across the continent thanks to Multichoice’s satellite TV monopoly, but I doubt the Kenyan Super League attracts millions of viewers. Also bear in mind that the number of satellite TV subscribers across the continent is fairly low.

So CAF have essentially succeeded in creating a competition that no one really takes seriously, and have somehow managed to sell sponsorship around it. What value is MTN getting from their naming rights?

So what about turning the idea on its head?

How about a super cup format to build from? The point that CAF is missing, is they need to make a small competition successful before trying to emulate UEFA with a 64-team competition.

For a super cup, one would need a three week chunk somewhere in the football calendar. This could be fairly easy to co-ordinate.

Make sure there’s buy-in from the top 12 federations on the continent. How you determine the exact 12 is another challenge all together, but assume that its possibly done with a few qualifying matches.

Award “host city” status on a rotating basis - you don’t need to play matches across an entire country to complicate matters.

So you’ve got a three week tournament with all the big teams on the continent. And for any continental competition to work, we need the buy in from (terrestrial) broadcasters - which a tournament like this would surely have. Big money, big sponsors, a big event.

Imagine an annual CAF Champions Cup… Perhaps it would be in Accra this year, Cape Town the next. Even Cairo.

I’d watch it. I’m sure you would too.