2024 CAF Super Cup final to hold in Saudi Arabia
African football governing body, CAF, has announced that the 2024 CAF Super Cup final between Al Ahly SC of Egypt and Zamalek SC of Egypt will be played in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on September 27 as part of Riyadh Season 2024, the body announced in a statement on Friday.
“CAF President Dr Patrice Motsepe and HE Turki Alalshikh announce Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as hosts of the TotalEnergies CAF Super Cup Final 2024 as part of ‘Riyadh Season 2024’,” the statement said.
In the all-Egyptian club final, the current winners of the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League, Al Ahly SC and the current winners of the TotalEnergies CAF Confederation Cup, Zamalek SC will face off far away from home in the Middle East.
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“The TotalEnergies CAF Super Cup Final 2024 will feature the current winners of the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League, Al Ahly SC and the current winners of the TotalEnergies CAF Confederation Cup, Zamalek SC and will be played on Friday 27 September 2024 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,” the statement added.
It is not the first time that CAF has hosted the Super Cup final outside of the continent. From 2019 to 2021, the one-off game was played in Qatar before it returned to the continent in the following year when Morocco hosted the 2022 edition.
The CAF Super Cup was hosted in the Middle East when Saudi Arabia staged the game in 2023 and will again return to the country.
History of the Cup
The African Super Cup started and organized in 1993 by the CAF under the name of the CAF Super Cup, It is played in a single match and on the field of the winner of the Champions League (exception in 2007). Until 2003, the African Super cup pitted the winner of the Champions League against the winner of the African Cup Winners’ Cup. When the latter disappeared, it was the winner of the Confederation Cup who took the place.
The notable edition was in 1994, Zamalek and Al Ahly, the two Egyptian belligerents met for the trophy in the infamous Cairo derby. They met in FNB Stadium in Johannesburg. Zamalek won the African Game of the 20th Century and achieved the title as the first Egyptian team to win the African Super cup.
On only six occasions, the winner of the Champions League lost in this competition: the Ivorian club Africa Sports d’Abidjan beat the Moroccans Wydad AC in the first edition in Abidjan in 1993, the ES Sahel have beat Raja CA in 1997, Maghreb de Fès beat ES Tunis in 2012, Raja CA and Zamalek SC beat ES Tunis in 2019 and 2020, and finally RS Berkane have beat Wydad AC in 2022.
Fez Maghreb is the first Confederation Cup winning club to have won the CAF Supercup since the CAF Champions League winner clashed with the Confederation Cup winner.
