- CAF has taken over scheduling of CAF Champions League dates and times for group matches
- Mosimane says the scheduling suits North Africans since its Ramadan time
With a week to the opening matches of the Total CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup group matches kick off, Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane is bemused by the CAF schedule.
For the first time in a long time, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has decided dates and times for the group matches of the CAF Champions League group fixtures which Mosimane questions saying there is no consistency.
“CAF has taken over the time to play and dates to play,” says Mosimane as quoted to Kickoff. “I like that when they do that but I want them to be consistent,” he added before citing the move is inconsistent with Maghreb sides left to make decisions on their own behalf.
The North Africans must also be told when to play because we are also told when to play. This thing is new now, now we are told when to play. Since when are we told? Why not send letters to say what time you gonna play and where you gonna play?
Previously, CAF has gazettes three days for match days for which the host team choses one that suits them as well as time.
The outspoken Mosimane hinted that the move is intended to favour North Africans since most of the nations in the region are Muslim and Ramadan is knocking.
So they told us where we gonna play and what time we gonna play. Somewhere, somehow it doesn’t suit us because there is the period of Ramadan and they put all the Arab teams late at 9/10 o’clock. We are playing Esperance at 9, we playing Esperance late here. Why? Because it’s the period of Ramadan, they are fasting. But why do you determine what time we have to play here? So there we are. Maybe Ahmad must come out. He is [CAF] president now; it’s not [Issa] Hayatou.
The African champions face Esperance of Tunisia, DR Congo’s AS Vita and Ethiopia’s Saint-George in group A as they seek to defend the title they won last year.