This season is the first to follow an August–to-May schedule, as per the decision of the CAF Executive Committee on 20 July 2017.[2][3] However, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the semi-finals and final of the competition to be postponed until October 2020. Moreover, for the first time, the final was played as a single match at a venue pre-selected by CAF,[4] and was played at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat, Morocco.[5]
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.[6] 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 2019–20 CAF Confederation Cup, the CAF uses the 2015–2019 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:[7][8][9]
The points are multiplied by a coefficient according to the year as follows:
2018–19 – 5
2018 – 4
2017 – 3
2016 – 2
2015 – 1
This was announced by the CAF on 4 June 2019, as using the previous scheme, it would be based on results from 2014 to 2018. The only change for the top 12 associations is that Tanzania is included while Ivory Coast is excluded.[10][11]
Teams
The following 53 teams from 42 associations entered the competition.
Eleven teams (in bold) received a bye to the first round.
Mali (MLI): For the second consecutive season, Mali were represented by Djoliba, the 2018 Malian Cup runners-up, as the Malian Première Division and Malian Cup were not played in 2018–19.
Location of teams of the 2018–19 CAF Confederation Cup. Italics: Teams transferred from the 2019–20 CAF Champions League. Red: Preliminary round; Green: First Round; Purple: Play-off Round; Brown: Group A; Orange: Group B; Yellow: Group C; Blue: Group D.
Schedule
The schedule of the competition is as follows.[12]
On 24 November 2019, CAF made a change to all fixtures dates starting from the group stage matchday 4 to the final, due to rescheduling of the 2020 African Nations Championship from January/February to April. The quarter-finals draw date was also changed.[13]
Following the quarter-finals, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa, the semi-finals, originally scheduled for 3 May (first legs) and 10 May (second legs), were postponed indefinitely on 11 April 2020,[14] and the final, originally scheduled for 24 May, was also postponed on 18 April 2020.[15] On 30 June 2020, the CAF Executive Committee proposed that the competition would resume with a Final Four format played as single matches in Morocco.[16] On 3 August 2020, the CAF announced that the competition would resume with the semi-finals played on 22 September, and the final played on 27 September.[17] On 10 September 2020, the CAF announced that at the request of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, the semi-finals were rescheduled to 19–20 October, and the final to 25 October.[18]
The draw for the preliminary round and first round was held on 21 July 2019 at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[19][20]
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).[6]
The draw for the play-off round was held on 9 October 2019, 19:00 CAT (UTC+2), at the Hilton Pyramids Golf in Cairo, Egypt.[21] The winners of the Confederation Cup first round were drawn against the losers of the Champions League first round, with the teams from the Confederation Cup hosting the second leg.
The 16 winners of the play-off round advanced to the group stage.
The draw for the group stage was held on 12 November 2019, 12:00 CAT (UTC+2), at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[22][23] The 16 teams, all winners of the play-off 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 in parentheses). Each group contained one team from Pot 1, one team from Pot 2 and two teams from Pot 3, and each team was drawn into one of the positions in their group.
In each group, teams play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advance to the quarter-finals of the knockout stage.
Tiebreakers
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers are applied in the following order (Regulations III. 20 & 21):[6]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
In the knockout stage, the quarter-finals were played over two legs, with each team playing one leg at home. The team that scored more goals on aggregate over the two legs advanced to the next round. If the aggregate score was level, the away goals rule is applied, i.e. the team that scored more goals away from home over the two legs advanced. If away goals were also equal, then extra time was not played and the winners were decided by a penalty shoot-out.
The semi-finals were originally to be played over two legs, but were played as single matches after the format change due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the final, which was played as a single match, if the score was level at the end of normal time, extra time was also not to be played and the winners would be decided by a penalty shoot-out.[6]
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 could not be drawn against each other, while teams from the same association could be drawn against each other.
In the draws for 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 and semi-finals), which was held on 5 February 2020, 19:00 CAT (UTC+2), at the Hilton Pyramids Golf in Cairo, Egypt.[24][25]
