The Ivorians saw off the Super Eagles of Nigeria in a tense 2-1 defeat.

Two strikes from Franck Kessie and Sebastien Haller were enough to see off Troost-Ekong’s opener.

Osimhen, the top scorer in the 2023 African Cup of Nations qualifiers, is set to contend with football stars including Egypt’s Mohammed Salah, Morocco’s Achraf Hakimi, and Algeria’s Riyad Mahrez for the coveted accolade.

The Nigerian striker played a pivotal role in Napoli’s Scudetto triumph, securing the Golden Boot with an impressive tally of 26 goals.

Reigning African women’s player of the year, Oshoala, faces competition from South Africa’s Thembi Klagtlana and Zambia’s Barbara Banda in her quest for the top prize.

Oshoala’s remarkable performance included scoring 21 goals in 28 games to lead FC Barcelona to the 2022/23 Spanish League title.

She also emerged as the top scorer for the Spanish club with 27 goals across all competitions and played a crucial role in Barcelona’s retention of the domestic title and triumph in the UEFA Women’s Champions League.

Additionally, Oshoala made history at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup by becoming the first Nigerian and the first female African player to score at three different editions of the tournament.

The award ceremony is scheduled to take place on December 11, 2023, in Marrakech, Morocco.

Twenty-four clubs, yet to be decided, will take part in the first edition, which has the backing of the world governing body FIFA and will be played between August 2023 and May 2024.

CAF president Patrice Motsepe, who announced the new competition, did not say if it would replace CAF’s existing Champions League and the second-tier Confederation Cup.

“The African Super League is a very important initiative. One of the major problems in Africa is finance,” said Motsepe at the launch held in the northern Tanzania town of Arusha.

“The Africa Super League is one of the most exciting developments in the history of African football and the objective in terms of what we are trying to achieve is very clear, to make sure African club football is world-class and competes with the best in the world.

“Our intention is to use the $100 million as prize money and to do that every year in the African Super League so that the club which wins gets $11.5 million,” he added.

Hamdi Meddeb, the chairman of four-time Champions League winners Esperance Tunis, claimed before the launch that sides would be better not to play in the current top-tier competition due to costs.

“Africa is a huge continent and sometimes we have to charter flights at a cost of more than $100,000 each,” Meddeb said.

“When we won the Champions League (in 2018 and 2019), more than half the prize money was spent on bonuses and allowances for the squad and the technical staff. Those are contractual obligations.”

Motsepe said CAF will use some of the 50 million dollars from the Super League to make football attractive and ensure the best players remain in Africa and improve the quality of the sport on the continent which has lagged behind other parts of the world.

“Each of the 24 clubs that will take part in the initial tournament will receive an annual contribution of three-and-half million dollars to buy players, pay for transport and player transfers,” Motsepe said.

Motsepe appealed to African governments to help with the construction of CAF-approved stadiums to ensure every club play their football in their own countries.

Not everyone is excited about the Super League with Cape Town City FC owner John Comitis calling it a “super silly idea”.

“The Super League will kill African club football,” he warned.

“You can switch off the lights on the domestic leagues.”

The NFF’s General Secretary, Mohammed Sanusi, made this disclosure in a statement by the federation’s department of communications on Wednesday.

Based on a preliminary assessment, that Kabungo had died following a stampede on his way to the hospital from the Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja on Tuesday.

Expressing shock over the sad incident, “The NFF commiserates with the world football governing body – FIFA; the Confederation of African Football; the Football Association of Zambia, and the family of Dr Kabungo on his sudden passing”.

His death pains us very much and we are in a state of deep shock,” Sanusi said while giving an account of what happened to Kabungo who was the match’s Doping Control Officer.

”According to the information from our own Medical Officer, Onimisi Salami, who was appointed by FIFA as the game’s medical officer, Kabungo was found gasping for breath near the dressing room of the Ghanaian team,” he added but said as he (Sanusi) was heading to the dressing room of the Nigerian team, the General Coordinator, Kabore Bosilong from South Africa had called his attention to the scene.

“Kabungo suddenly started gasping for breath. The match’s FIFA Security Officer, Dixon Okello from Uganda, also witnessed the incident.We tried to resuscitate him there and then, but when this did not appear to be working, we put him in an ambulance and rushed him to Cedar Crest Hospital in Apo, where he gave up the ghost.It is a very sad incident and one is shocked that some persons have been putting a terrible slant to the whole thing by saying he was beaten up by fans. That is a lie.

Oladapo was initially banned for one year by CAF for testing positive for prednisolone in a test conducted in May.

The initial ban meant he would stay away from all football-related activities until July 2022, but following an appeal, the midfielder has now been cleared to return on January 5 by the CAF Appeals Committee.

In his defence, Oladapo maintained that any trace of the substances found in his blood sample would have been from the anti-Covid19 medications he was taking at the time. Also, his club, Enyimba, in testimony maintained the same stance, arguing that their captain would not purposely take a banned substance and had no prior doping record.

After the hearing on Wednesday, September 22, a statement from the CAF Appeals Committee read;

“The Board has decided to reduce the sanction of player Oladapo Augustine from one year to six (6) months. Therefore the player Oladapo Augustine is suspended from taking part in any football-related activities until 4th January 2022.”

At a virtual executive committee meeting chaired by CAF president Patrice Motsepe, it was also decided that a draw to divide the 24 qualifiers into six groups will be held on June 25.

A total of 23 teams have confirmed their places at the continental showpiece.

The nations are Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Comoros, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe.

However, there is one spot left to be contested between the Benin Republic and Sierra Leone.

The match between the two countries in Freetown was called off after five key players from the visiting nation tested positive for Coronavirus. The game has been rearranged for the May 31-June 15th international window.

The football association on Monday announced five-year suspension of Ahmad.

Ahmad has been the CAF president of since March 2017 and was standing for re-election.

FIFA noted in a statement that Ahmad had “breached his duty of loyalty, offered gifts and other benefits, mismanaged funds and abused his position as the CAF President”.

Ahmad has also been fined 200,000 Swiss francs ($220,000) by FIFA for the misdeeds, which related to “the organisation and financing of an Umrah pilgrimage to Mecca” and his involvement in CAF’s dealings with a sports equipment company.

The 60-year-old, who last week stood down from his post for 20 days after testing positive for coronavirus, can appeal the ban “from all football-related activity” at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

In April 2019 he was accused of a series of offences by former CAF official Amr Fahmy, who informed FIFA in a letter that Ahmad had paid bribes to directors, made personal use of CAF funds, and sexually harassed a number of employees.

This was contained in a press statement titled, ‘AFCON Qualifier: CAF bars media, journalists from Nigeria, Sierra Leone match’ by the Nigeria Football Federation’s spokesperson, Ademola Olajire on Monday.

The statement read in part, “The Confederation of African Football has categorically stated that no journalists or supporters would be allowed inside the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin City for Friday’s 2022 AFCON qualifying match between the Super Eagles and the Leone Stars.

“In the guidelines communicated to the Nigeria Football Federation, CAF instructed, under Media Operations, that there would be no mixed zone, virtual press conference only if possible (media officers from both teams only), and that only the TV channels with the rights will be allowed flash interviews.

“Also, only photographers of participating teams would be allowed at the match.

“The above puts to rest all previous speculations regarding having spectators at the match venue, and whether members of the media would be allowed into the arena.”

The statement also quoted the NFF’s Director of Competitions, Bola Oyeyode, as saying that “only individuals accredited by the NFF would be allowed inside the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium for the Day 3 qualifier, which will kick off at 5pm Nigeria time.”

The qualifiers were meant to happen between March 21-March 25 but CAF said they were making the decision to postpone the qualifiers in order to protect the health and safety of stakeholders including players, sponsors, match officials and broadcasters.

A statement published by CAF on Friday evening read; “Coronavirus has been declared as a pandemic by WHO. In Africa, only a few cases have been reported, but the situation could evolve negatively. Several players, who are supposed to play the next Afcon qualifiers, come from countries which have been severely affected by the virus (Europe, Asia). Several African governments have taken strong restrictions on travels; lockdown, quarantine for people coming from countries affected by the virus. Several clubs refuse now to release their players for the next international matches”.F-

The two players spent several hours with the CAF medical team before joining their colleagues at the Helnan Palestine Hotel beach resort .

The AFCON has not been known to record any positive dope test in its previous 31 editions.