CAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Rangers,Rivers united in a tricky tie

Nigerian Professional Football League champions Rangers International of Enugu will kick start their CAF Champions League campaign away from against J.S Saoura of Algeria while Rivers United will travel to the ancient city of Bamako, Mali to slug it out against  AS Bamako on February 10-12,2017 , while the return fixtures will be played in Enugu and Port-Harcourt on February 17-19 2017.

 

The CAF Champions League competition will take a new format next year as reforms meant to raise both standards, competitiveness, and financial benefits were initiated by CAF earlier this year.

 

If both Rivers United and Rangers Internationals qualify from the preliminary round as they be guest to Egyptian giants, Zamalek in the round of 16 while Rivers United will host either Sony Nguema (Equatorial Guinea) or Sudan’s Al-Merrikh.

 

Meanwhile, the follow the review of the prize money by CAF, the champions get a whooping sum of $2.5 million (about N788 million) and play in the FIFA World Club Cup.

The runners-up will receive $1.25 million (N394 million), semi-finalists $875,000 (N276 million), quarter-finalists $650,000 (N205 million) and the eight group stage qualifiers who fail to make the knockout stage $550,000 (N173 million) each.

The winner of the fixture will automatically qualify to the money winning stage of the championship.

It will have sixteen (16) teams in the group stages as opposed to previous formats of eight (8) teams.

While the qualifier stages also known as preliminary rounds have been cut down to two (2) as against the previous system of (3).

The final qualifier round of thirty two teams in the CAF Champions League will see 16 teams drop down to compete at the CAF confederation cup final round.

All preliminary rounds will kick start in the middle of February 2017.

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