2023/24 Africa’s football season in review: Winners, losers, and unforeseen twists
The Confederation of African Football (CAF), having rolled the dice for kickstarting the 2024/2025 season with draws for the preliminary rounds of the Champions League and Confederation Cup already held to determine the teams that will feature in the Interclub competitions from 16 August 2024, means a fresh restart is beckoning.
With the majority of leagues in Africa concluded for the 2023/24 season, Made In Africa Sport takes a deeper look at how things played out across the continent for all involved over the course of the entire season.
Though CAF officially recognises 56 countries, our analysis covered 61, factoring in five additional partially recognised/dependent territories, since CAF itself included Zanzibar and Réunion — not outrightly independent and not recognised by FIFA — as member nations.
In all of these 61 African countries we tracked in the 2023/2024 season, only 49 have completed their league football season. Sudan, Ascension Island, Eritrea, and Gabon are the only four countries with no active league in place.
The remaining eight countries still have their leagues ongoing due to divergent reasons. The Egyptian Premier League is scheduled to end tentatively later in August, while the Zimbabwe Premier Soccer League, Malawi Super League, Mozambique Moçambola, Réunion Premier League, Saint Helena SHFA League, São Tomé e Príncipe Campeonato Nacional, and Mayotte Régional 1 are running a differing system of calendar year football season.
Among all the 49 leagues to have been completed on the continent, Cape Verde Campeonato Nacional, Somaliland Champions League, and Madagascar Malagasy Pro League used a knockout format to eliminate teams at a certain stage. Hence, this analysis will focus only on the 46 leagues that were played in a full round-robin format to reflect the overall season performance of all teams fairly and accurately.
While all the 46 leagues played in a round-robin format are being looked at, it should be noted that these leagues also used varying formats. Thirty-seven leagues played the regular single-league format, and the other nine leagues used an abridged league format where teams are grouped into two or more and then followed by a condensed playoff phase, typically in the form of a mini-league to determine league winner or relegation.
To ensure consistency across all leagues, this analysis standardised the points system by awarding three points for a win and one point for a draw, as this is the generally accepted system. Variations in points systems, as well as points and goals deductions due to sanctions, were not taken into consideration. Goal calculations were derived directly from match results.
The South Sudan National League is the largest and most complex of all the leagues on the continent, with over 100 teams. It begins with more than ten teams each participating in 16 regional qualifiers, where bottom teams relegate, and all the regional champions advance to another round where they are pitted in three groups of four. Then, the three group winners proceed to the final round playing each other, and the team topping the mini-league is crowned champion.
Data inconsistencies in the South Sudanese league limited the tracking of results to just six regions, as there was incomplete disclosure in six regions while information was wholly unavailable in four other regions. In spite of this, the 1,470 goals recorded in 499 games were the highest in all leagues on the continent.
The Benin Premier League has 36 teams divided into four groups of nine, with the top four of each group advancing to the championship playoffs group where they all play each other in a single-league format over the course of five months. The winner wins the league, while the bottom five of the initial groups move to a separate relegation playoffs group where they are further divided into two groups of ten each. The team finishing bottom of each group is relegated to the Ligue Amateur du Bénin.
The Comoros Premier League abridged format operates in a regional system where teams are unequally distributed across the three major islands in the Comoros Archipelago. Twelve teams played in the Ngazidja region, with the last four relegating; eight teams in the Mwali region, with the last two relegating; and the Ndzwani region has ten teams, with the last two relegating, while the team finishing eighth playing a relegation playoff against the third-placed team of the region’s division two league. All three regional league winners then face off in a one-leg round-robin playoff to determine the league winner.
The Rodrigues RRFA Division 1 was the only league on the continent in the 2023/24 season that used a single-league cum playoff system. All twelve teams in the league play each other in a one-leg round-robin format. Then the top six advance to a super league and the last six to the relegation round, where they all play each other, and the top team of the super league becomes champion while the bottom team of the relegation round drops to RRFA Division 2.
The Tunisian Ligue Professionnelle 1 also operates an abridged system in its own unique way. With 14 teams, the league is divided into two groups of seven where the top three of each group advance to the championship playoff and the bottom four to the playout.
In the playoff and playout, additional points were given to all the teams based on their position in the first-round abridged groups. Winners of both groups got three points each, the runners-up got two points, while third place got one point each added to the points accrued during the playoffs. For the playouts, four points are given to the fourths of the abridged groups in the first round, three points to the fifths, and two points to the sixths. This creates a disparity where lower-ranked teams in the first round find it harder to catch up in the playoffs and playouts.
The Equatoguinean Primera División, DR Congo Linafoot, and Cameroon Elite One are the other leagues with an abridged format. All teams were divided into two groups in the first round and the second round for playoffs. While the bottom teams were relegated directly in the first round in Equatorial Guinea, they all went through relegation playoffs in the second round in DR Congo and Cameroon.
Best Team Overall
798 teams participated in all 46 round-robin leagues on the continent. Benin Premier League champion, Coton FC, amassed the most points on the continent, winning a third consecutive title with 84 points in 40 games, two points ahead of Dadjè FC (82) who finished second in the same league and four ahead of Young Africans (80).
Coton and Dadjè sit at the top due to the higher number of games played, with 16 matches in the first round of their abridged league and 24 in the championship playoff. Factoring in points gained per game for leagues with 20+ games, they are ranked 46th and 52nd respectively with 2.10 and 2.05 points.
With this metric, South Sudan National League teams, Holy Family (2.75) and Merriekh FC (2.6) rank highest. Sandwiched in between them is Tanzanian Premier League champion, Young Africans, whose 80 points in 30 games put them at 2.67.
Among all teams to have played at least 15 games, United Brothers FC is the only team not to accrue any point across the continent, losing all 22 games they played in the Bentiu regional league of the South Sudan National League and are anchored to the foot of the joint continental table. CDC/Q7 of Djibouti Premier League gained one point from 18 games, and FC Mtsamdou gained four from 22 games in the Comoros Premier League.
Invincibility
Raja Casablanca became the first team to win the Morocco Botola without losing a game in the league’s history. APR FC also finished unbeaten for the third time in five years en route to their record-extending 22nd Rwanda Premier League title, as well as Dekadaha in the Somali Premier League.
Raja and APR achieved the feat in 30 games, with Dekadaha’s coming from 22 games. They are the only teams not to taste defeat in all leagues. Mamelodi Sundowns will have their luck to blame, having gone unbeaten all season in the South African Premier Division only to lose the last match 1-0 to Cape Town City and end a national record of a 53-game streak that lasted 626 days.
AS Arta/Solar7 (Djibouti Premier League), AS Douane (Mauritania Super D1), Benfica de Bissau (Guinea-Bissau), Espérance de Tunis (Tunisian Ligue Professionnelle 1), Mbabane Swallows (Eswatini Premier League), Cercle de Joachim (Mauritius Premier League), El-Merriekh (South Sudan National League), Petro de Luanda (Angola Girabola), Saint-Etienne SC (Rodrigues RRFA Division 1), TP Mazembe (DR Congo Linafoot), and Watanga FC (Liberian First Division) also lost once in their league.
While these teams were insurmountable, some were thoroughly beaten. US Souf’s 27 losses in 30 games in the Algerian Ligue Professionnelle 1 was the highest on the continent, followed by Magara Young Boys losing 26 times in the Burundi Premier League and Naughty Boys losing 24 in the Lesotho Premier League.
NPA Anchors FC (Liberian First Division), Maendeleo Manta (Zanzibar Premier League), Harambecho Durame (Ethiopian Premier League), Gombe United (Nigeria Premier Football League), and Agri-Tchad FC (Chad Premier League) sit joint-fourth with 22 losses each.
Lesotho’s CCX (21) was the only team on the continent to lose 20+ games and escape relegation after finishing 13th. Togo’s Dynamic Togolais (21), Ghana’s Real Tamale United (21), Sierra Leone’s Kholifa Stars (21) and Kahunla Rangers (22), and Kenya’s Nzoia Sugar (22) all suffered relegation.
South Sudan’s United Brothers FC lost 22 of 22 games, standing out as the only team with a 100% losing record.
Serial Winners
Just 153 of the 798 clubs won more than 50% of the games they played in their respective leagues. Young Africans’ 26 wins in 30 games were the highest on the continent, but with 87%, it sits behind El-Merriekh’s 89% win rate of 25 from 28.
Benin Premier League duo of Dadjè and Coton recorded 25 wins each from 40 games (63%), DR Congo Linafoot duo of TP Mazembe and AS Maniema Union recorded 24 wins each from 30 (80%) and 32 games (75%) respectively. Sierra Leone National Premier League’s Bo Rangers followed with 23 wins in 34 games (68%) while Vital’ô (Burundi Premier League), Mamelodi Sundowns (South African Premier Division), Djoliba Athlétic Club (Mali Ligue 1), AS FAR (Morocco Botola), and AS GNN (Niger Superligue) all racked up the top 10 with 22 wins from 30 games (73%) with the exception of AS GNN who did it in 32 games (69%).
On the contrasting side, CDC/Q7 and United Brothers finished their league campaign as the only teams on the continent without a win and were relegated to Division 2. Comorian clubs Café Sport, FC Mtsamdou, and FCN Espoir managed to win just a single game in the Premier League, as did Harambecho Durame (Ethiopia), NPA Anchors FC (Liberia), Agri-Tchad FC (Chad), ASOPT (Central African Republic), and Arua Hill (Uganda) as they all relegated from the top flight, though the latter was excluded from the second half of the season and relegated for failing to meet minimal licensing requirements.
Goal Getters
TP Mazembe’s march to their 20th Linafoot title saw them scoring a continent-leading 91 goals in 30 games, 7 more than South Sudan’s El-Merriekh with 84 from 28 games, while Tanzania’s Young Africans followed with 71 from 30 games.
Heaven Eleven FC (Liberian First Division), AS FAR (Morocco Botola), and AS GNN (Niger Superligue) scored 65 goals in 26, 30, and 32 games, respectively.
With a non-uniform number of games played, Rodrigues RRFA Division 1 champion Saint-Etienne SC led the continent’s goal-per-game ratio after hitting the back of the net 52 times in 16 games for a 3.25 ratio, edging Djibouti Premier League champion AS Arta/Solar7 and Mauritius Premier League champion Cercle de Joachim, whose respective 55 goals in 18 games both stand at 3.06.
TP Mazembe and El-Merriekh followed as the only other clubs to cross the 3 goals per game threshold with 3.03 and 3.00, respectively.
Chad Premier League’s Agri-Tchad FC defence was the most leaky as they shipped in 93 goals from 26 games, Algeria’s US Souf and Djibouti’s CDC/Q7 followed with 86 from 30 and 18 games, respectively. With the latter’s ratio of 4.78 being the highest on the continent, Agri-Tchad’s at 3.58, White Bull FC of South Sudan at 3.5 in third after being breached 63 times in 18 games.
With CDC/Q7 only scoring 6 — second lowest on the continent after United Brothers went scoreless in 22 games in South Sudan — and conceding 86, their -80 goal difference sits at the nadir, followed by Agri-Tchad (-70) and US Souf (-64) while TP Mazembe (+79), El-Merriekh (+72), and Young Africans (+57) occupy the zenith.
Successive Champions
Of all the 42 leagues, 15 had teams that won the title back-to-back. FC Nouadhibou retained the Mauritania Super D1 for the seventh consecutive time, the longest winning streak on the continent, while Sundowns won the South African Premier Division for the sixth time in a row.
ASKO de Kara (Togo Championnat National) and APR (Rwanda Premier League) won their fifth consecutive title. Young Africans (Tanzanian Premier League), Petro de Luanda (Angola Girabola), Bo Rangers (Sierra Leone National Premier League), and Coton FC (Benin Premier League) completed a three-peat.
AS Douanes (Burkina Faso Ligue 1) and AS PSI (Chad Premier League) proved that their maiden title in 2023 wasn’t a fluke and held onto the league championship, as did Jwaneng Galaxy (Botswana Premier League), AS GNN (Niger Superligue), Real Banjul (Gambia GFA League First Division), Gor Mahia (Kenya Premier League), and African Stars (Namibia Premier Football League) defending their crowns successfully.
Al Ahly won a back-to-back title as well but was not included as the Egyptian Premier League is omitted from this analysis due to its ongoing status.
Fallen Champions
Dragón FC of Equatoguinean Primera División was the only champion on the continent that suffered relegation in pursuit of their title defence. Having lost 14 out of 18 games in the continental region of the abridged league, they finished bottom of the group and dropped to Segunda División.
2022/23 Senegal Ligue 1 winner, Génération Foot also had a season to forget, escaping relegation on the final day after winning just 4 of their last 22 games. The three-time champion also faced similar struggles in their first title defence in 2020, placing 12th out of 14 before the league was abandoned midway due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
New Boys In Town
114 teams were promoted to the 46 leagues, and while most of them couldn’t survive to stay up, some found their foot and established dominance at first chance.
38 of them were relegated instantaneously, with 6 coming from the Comoros Premier League out of 8 that were promoted. Two each were relegated from Zanzibar, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria Premier, Niger, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, and Algeria.
Conversely, two promoted teams made history by clinching the league titles. Commercial Banks of Ethiopia were crowned champions of the Ethiopia Premier League in their first attempt after gaining promotion from the 2022–23 Ethiopian Higher League.
After relegating from the Cameroonian top flight in 2004, Victoria United FC returned in 2023 by winning the Elite Two championship and dethroned eighteen-time champion Coton Sport FC to win the Elite One title.
The Journey Ahead
With the 2024/25 season officially kickstarting on the continent with the first and second preliminary rounds of the CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup from 16 August to 22 September 2024, 59 teams from 47 countries entered the Champions League while 52 teams from 41 countries entered the Confederation Cup.
Among all CAF’s 56 member countries, Cape Verde, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Mauritius, Réunion, and São Tomé and Príncipe are the nine countries that did not enter teams for the Champions League, while Sudan, Mauritania, Central African Republic, Djibouti, Malawi, and Namibia, in addition to the nine countries that did not enter the Champions League, make up the 15 countries that missed out on the Confederation Cup.
The top-ranked teams in each competition—Al Ahly, Mamelodi Sundowns, Espérance de Tunis, TP Mazembe, and Petro de Luanda for the Champions League, and Zamalek, Al Masry, RS Berkane, USM Alger, Sekhukhune United, CS Sfaxien, Simba, Saint-Éloi Lupopo, AS Vita Club, ASEC Mimosas, and Enyimba for the Confederation Cup—received a bye to the second round.
The preliminary rounds will be contested over two legs, with each team playing one match at home and one away. If the aggregate score is level after both legs, the away goals rule will be applied to determine the winner. If the tie remains unresolved, extra time will not be played, and the match will go directly to a penalty shootout to decide which team advances to the group stage.
