2022–23 CAF Confederation Cup

The 2022–23 CAF Confederation Cup (officially the 2022–23 TotalEnergies CAF Confederation Cup for sponsorship reasons) was the 20th edition of Africa's secondary club football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), under the current CAF Confederation Cup title after the merger of CAF Cup and African Cup Winners' Cup.

USM Alger, the winners, qualified automatically for the 2023–24 CAF Confederation Cup, and also earned the right to play against the winners of the 2022–23 CAF Champions League in the 2023 CAF Super Cup.

RS Berkane were the defending champions, but were eliminated in the playoff round by Union Monastirienne.

Association team allocation

All 56 CAF member associations may enter the CAF Confederation Cup, with the 12 highest ranked associations according to their CAF 5-year ranking eligible to enter two teams in the competition. As a result, theoretically a maximum of 68 teams could enter the tournament (plus 16 teams eliminated from the CAF Champions League which enter the play-off round) – although this level has never been reached.

For the 2022–23 CAF Confederation Cup, the CAF uses the 2017–2022 CAF 5-year ranking, which calculates points for each entrant association based on their clubs’ performance over those 5 years in the CAF Champions League and CAF Confederation Cup. The criteria for points are the following:

The points are multiplied by a coefficient according to the year as follows:

• 2021–22: x 5
• 2020–21: × 4
• 2019–20: × 3
• 2018–19: × 2
• 2018: × 1

Teams

The following 50 teams from 39 associations entered the competition.

• Teams in bold received a bye to the second round.
• The other teams entered the first round.

Associations are shown according to their 2018–2022 CAF 5-year ranking – those with a ranking score have their rank and score (in parentheses) indicated.

Associations which did not enter a team

Notes:

Schedule

Qualifying rounds

The draw for the qualifying rounds was held on 9 August 2022 at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.

In the qualifying rounds, each tie was played on a home-and-away two-legged basis. If the aggregate score was tied after the second leg, the away goals rule was applied, and if still tied, extra time was not played, and the penalty shoot-out was used to determine the winner (Regulations III. 13 & 14).

First round

Notes:

Second round

Playoff round

The 16 winners of the second round advanced to the playoff round, where they were joined by the 16 losers of the Champions League second round.

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held on 12 December 2022, 11:00 GMT (13:00 local time, UTC+2), at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt. The 16 winners of the playoff round of qualifying were drawn into four groups of four.

The teams were seeded by their performances in the CAF competitions for the previous five seasons (CAF 5-year ranking points shown next to every team). Each group contained one team from each of Pot 1, Pot 2, Pot 3, and Pot 4, and each team was allocated to the positions in their group according to their pot.

In the group stage, each group was played on a home-and-away round-robin basis. The winners and runners-up of each group advanced to the quarter-finals of the knockout stage.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Knockout stage

The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:

• In the draw for the quarter-finals, the four group winners were seeded, and the four group runners-up were unseeded. The seeded teams were drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the second leg. Teams from the same group cannot be drawn against each other, while teams from the same association can be drawn against each other.
• In the draws for the semi-finals, there were no seedings, and teams from the same group or the same association could be drawn against each other. As the draws for the quarter-finals and semi-finals were held together before the quarter-finals were played, the identity of the quarter-final winners was not known at the time of the semi-final draw.

Bracket

The bracket was decided after the draw for the knockout stage (quarter-finals, semi-finals and final), which was held on 5 April 2023, 18:30 GMT (20:30 local time, UTC+2), at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

The first leg was played on 28 May, and the second leg was played on 3 June 2023.

2–2 on aggregate. USM Alger won on away goals.

Top goalscorers

See also

• 2022–23 CAF Champions League
• 2023 CAF Super Cup

References

External links

• CAFonline.com