By Lawrence Kooko
Mamelodi Sundowns have been crowned the first ever African football league champions after beating Wydad Casablanca 2-0 at the Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria today.
The south African side won the second leg of the final match seven days after losing 2-1 in Casablanca, Sundowns’ peter Shalulile returned from injury to give the Masandawana as they go by other names the lead in the first half’s stoppage time tying both sides to a 2-2 on aggregate at the break.
In the 53rd minute, Aubrey Madiba capitalized on a blind pass from Wydad defense to put the home team a head setting the fully parked and yellow painted Versfield stadium ablaze.
This becomes the second continental title for Sundowns, having won the confederation of African football federation (CAF) champions league in 2016 and a first ever continental success for coach Rulani Mokwena.
The first leg that happened on November 5th, saw Wydad beat sundowns 2-1 in Casablanca with an own goal from Mamelodi’s Rivaldo Coetzee in the 41st minute, Sundowns responded with Abdelmounain Boutoil’s 74th penalty, however it took Wydad only 4 minutes when Anas Serrhat scored a with a powerful strike in the 78th minute salvage the three points for the Moroccans.
This year marks the first edition of the African Football League (AFL), which was flagged off on 20th October 2023 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and featured 8 teams however starting in the 2024/25 season, 24 clubs will take part in the competions.
The AFL is set to become the newest club competition in addition to the champions league and the confederations cup featuring the best-ranked and successful teams in the continent.
The AFL is a CAF competition established in partnership with FIFA and one of its main objectives is to ensure that the quality of African club football is globally competitive and that African clubs are commercially viable and will also cont
The clubs that featured this season included Egyptian’s Al Ahly, Enyimba SC from Nigeria, Tunisia’s Esperance, Angola’s Petro de Luanda, Tanzania’s Simba SC, DRC’s TP Mazembe, this season’s finalists and Morocco’s Wydad Casablanca and the Champions Mamelodi Sundowns from South Africa.