With the inaugural tournament now reaching its final stages, the African Football League's impact on the continent will be one of profound proportions!
Long before it was first introduced, Dr Patrice Motsepe, the president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), visualised African football being on par with the biggest clubs in the world. In other words, it would be competing with Europe in terms of not only on-pitch ability, but also commercially.
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The dream for football enthusiasts on the continent is for them to be mentioned in the same breath as FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Liverpool, AC Milan, and so forth. When have you heard people speak of Enyimba FC or ES Tunis with the same excitement and passion as they do the aforementioned clubs?
And if you have heard their names being bandied about since the AFL kicked off, it means the tournament is doing it was initially intended to do!
Aside from trying to get Africa to a level where it can compete with clubs from other parts of the world, the intention was also to get more overseas eyes on the football this continent has to offer. That seems to be working!
The tournament has been covered by some of the biggest publications in the world. When you have big guns like BBC Sport or Al Jazeera and others covering the tournament, you're doing something right.
The next step would be to get more Africans watching African football! Often, you will find that someone on the continent knows more about England's Premier League or Spain's LALIGA than they know about their own country's top flight, and you probably cannot blame them.
Dr Motsepe put it perfectly himself.
"African football spectators love European football, they watch it, they watch Brazilian football, they also watch football from all over the world that is exciting, that is talented, that is attractive, and that wins," he said at the tournament's trophy reveal.
Fortunately, however, he added that "there's a clear understanding that we have to make African football attractive".
Playing in Africa if you're a footballer who is currently in Europe perhaps does not seem like an attractive offer. For example, when the news broke that Lionel Messi was leaving Barcelona, there was a social media post linking him with Kaizer Chiefs, and the first thing everyone thought was, beside probably Chiefs fans, that this was just a joke. Imagine, for one second, a world where that could have been a serious reality.
As harsh as this may sound, one of the things that attract footballers to a venture is money, and Dr Motsepe is ready to splash the cash.
The AFL winners are set to receive $4 million (R74 million). The runners-up will go home with $2.5 million (R46 million), while the losing semi-finalists will receive $1.7 million (R31 million) each and the losing quarter-finalists each earned $900 000 (R16 million) for their participation.
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The investment going into the tournament is certainly a step in the right direction to a destination that seems so far-fetched... for now.
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