The 2024–25 CAF Champions League, officially the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League for sponsorship reasons,[1] is the 61st season of Africa's premier club football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and the 29th under the CAF Champions League title.
The winners of this edition of the competition will automatically qualify for the group stage of its next edition, earn the right to play against the winners of the 2024–25 CAF Confederation Cup in the 2025 CAF Super Cup, the 2025 FIFA Intercontinental Cup and the 2029 FIFA Club World Cup.[2]
All 54 CAF member associations may enter the CAF Champions League, with the 12 highest ranked associations according to the CAF 5-year ranking eligible to enter two teams in the competition.[2] As a result, a maximum of 68 teams could enter the tournament – although this level has never been reached.
For this season's edition, CAF used the 2019–2024 CAF 5-year ranking, which calculates points for each entrant association based on their clubs performance over the 5 years in the CAF Champions League and the CAF Confederation Cup. The criteria for the points are as follows:[3][4][5]
The points were multiplied by a coefficient according to the season as follows:
The following 59 teams from 47 associations entered the competition.
Associations are shown according to their CAF 5-year ranking – those with a ranking score have their rank and score (in parentheses) indicated.
Notes
The schedule of the qualifying tournament is as follows.
The draw for the qualifying rounds was held on 11 July 2024, 12:00 GMT (15:00 local time, UTC+3), at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[8][9]
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 a penalty shoot-out was used to determine the winner (Regulations III. 13 & 14).
Notes:
The 16 winners of the second round advanced to the group stage.
The draw for the group stage was held on 7 October 2024, 11:00 GMT (14:00 local time, UTC+3), in Cairo, Egypt.[10] The 16 winners of the second round of qualifying rounds 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 next to every team). Each group contained one team from each of Pot 1, Pot 2, Pot 3, and Pot 4, and each team were allocated to the positions in their group according to their pot.
The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:
The bracket was decided after the draw for the knockout stage, which was held on 20 February 2025, 18:00 AST (UTC+3) at the beIN Sports headquarters in Doha, Qatar.[11]
The first leg will be played on 24 May, and the second leg will be played on 1 June 2025.
As of 19 April 2025[update]