CAF President Donates $10M To FIFA-CAF Pan-African School Football Championship

By Sampson Adedeji Newly elected president of Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced donation of $10m by the Motsepe Foundation to the FIFA-CAF Pan-African School Football Championship, BSNSports.com.ng reports. He made the donation during his visit to Coted'ivoire on Tuesday and said the money will be used to initiate and support the development and growth of schools’ football in the 6 CAF Zones as part of the FIFA-CAF Pan-African School Football Championship which was launched by FIFA and CAF in Kinshasa, DRC a few weeks ago. " The best investment we can make to ensure that African football is amongst the best in the world and self-sustaining, is to invest in schools’ football and youth football development infrastructure for boys and girls at club and national level. This is one of my key focus areas as President of CAF," he said. Boys and girls aged between 12 and 14 will play in the FIFA-CAF Pan-African School Football Championship, which will have 3 stages; starting at national level (via national football associations) and thereafter proceeding to the 6 Zonal level tournaments which provides the qualification path to the FIFA-CAF Pan-African School Football Championship Finals. Pilot national tournaments will take place in several countries throughout Africa; including Benin, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia, with other participating countries to be announced in due course. Qualification tournaments will be played between May and December 2021, with the finals scheduled for February 2022. The first full edition of the FIFA-CAF Pan-African School Football Championship, including all countries from the African Continent, will take place between 2022 and 2023.