• Football

Ngarizemo weighs Caf competition options

• 1 Day Ago 26 June 2025

Young African Football Club boss Marley Ngarizemo said participating in the Confederation of African Football (Caf) tournament is not guaranteed yet, as the team weighs its options.

The club, which finished second in the 2024/25 Debmarine Namibia Premiership season, recently expressed a desire to compete in the Confederation Cup for the first time in its history.

Young Africans will, however, have to weigh their options before fully committing to the competition’s preliminary rounds.

“It is every club's dream to participate in the Caf competitions, but those are still just dreams for us.

“We, however, have to look at the advantages and disadvantages of participating in such a competition.

“At the same time, we are also looking at the cost involved in it and whether we can afford that as a club,” Ngarizemo said.

The club owner revealed that meeting the requirements for participating in the competition is one of the first things on their list.

The requirements are divided into five categories, which include sporting, infrastructure, personnel, administrative, legal and financial, and must be fulfilled by a license applicant to be granted a license to participate in the Confederation Cup.

“As a club, we are dealing with the association and the licensing officer to hand us the license before we can proceed with other plans,” he remarked.



Second Namibian team at Caf tournament

Young African will become the second Namibian team to ever compete at Caf Confederation Cup level.

African Stars are so far the only Namibian club to have participated in the competition.

Stars played in the tournament’s preliminary rounds in 2014 and in 2019 but failed to reach the group stages on both occasions.

In 2014, African Stars faced Angolan opponents Petro de Luanda over two legs.

Stars lost 3-0 to the Angolan side in the first leg of the preliminaries before beating them 2-0 at home, but exited the competition through a 2-3 aggregate loss.

In 2019, the team met Morocco’s Raja Casablanca in the play-off round and played to a 1-1 draw in the first leg before losing 1-0 in the second leg.

Last year, clubs participating in the Caf Confederation Cup each received $50 000 (N$893 750).

The team that wins the competition pockets $2 million, which is over N$35 million.



Competitions brief

The Caf Confederation Cup, known as the TotalEnergies Caf Confederation Cup for sponsorship purposes, is an annual association football club competition established in 2004 and organised by Caf.

Clubs qualify for the competition based on their performance in their national leagues and cup competitions. It is the second-tier competition of African club football, ranking below the Caf Champions League. The winner of the tournament faces the winner of the aforementioned competition in the following season's Caf Super Cup.