CAF Announces Date for 2026–27 Champions League Preliminary Draw

Rabat — The countdown to Africa’s next club season has quietly begun in Cairo.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has pencilled in August 6 as the date for the preliminary draw of the 2026–27 CAF Champions League, according to Moroccan outlet El Botola, which cites an official source within CAF’s Club Competitions Committee. The Egyptian capital, the nerve centre of African football politics, will once again stage the first act of the continent’s flagship club tournament.

The draw will come only after the club registration window slams shut and national federations sign off on their representatives’ squad lists. No paperwork, no place in the pots. That administrative line in the sand will shape who actually makes it into the preliminary rounds and who watches from home.

Behind the scenes, there has been a tug of war over what this competition should look like. The Egyptian Football Association pushed for more clubs to be admitted into CAF’s interclub tournaments, a move that would have strengthened the hand of one of the continent’s traditional powerhouses. CAF’s response was blunt: no.

The Competitions Committee, according to the same report, opted against any tweak to the format for 2026–27. No expansion, no restructuring, no experiment. The Champions League will run under the same blueprint, preserving the current pathway from preliminary rounds to the group stage and beyond. For clubs plotting their season, the map remains familiar; the margins for error do not.

Morocco's Representatives

Morocco already knows its standard-bearers. RS Berkane and Maghreb de Fès will carry the country’s hopes into the next edition, stepping into a competition that has become both a shop window and a battleground for North African heavyweights and emerging forces from the rest of the continent. Both sides will arrive with the same ambition: survive the early hurdles, then build momentum toward a serious tilt at the latter stages.

The preliminary draw on August 6 will sketch out their first obstacles. It will also chart the opening routes for dozens of clubs chasing a place in the group stage of Africa’s premier club competition, where reputations are made, budgets are transformed, and seasons are defined.