CAF CL Why Vipers Could be thrown out of CAF Champions League

CAF requires all the clubs that will participate in the interclub competitions to have a women's team.

As Vipers Sports Club wind up their celebrations after winning the StarTimes Uganda Premier League and Uganda Cup, respectively, the preparations for the CAF Champions League should be in progress.

But it will not be business as usual after CAF reminded teams that they must have a women’s team as part of the requirements for a CAF Club License.

As it appears, Vipers Sports Club has no women’s team in place but needs to get that sorted before the end of this month as CAF has set June 30th as the deadline for submitting the licensing requirements.

Vipers Public Relations Officer Abdu Wasike confirmed that the club has no women’s team in place.

“We’ve not received the letter yet and as you know, the team is in the off-season, so we haven’t yet met to discuss it [as a club],” Wasike told Pulse Sports via phone.

Requirements

In the document seen by Pulse Sports, CAF has outlined a number of requirements that need to be fulfilled.

They cover the sporting, infrastructure, personnel and administrative, legal and financial, while fulfilling the domestic club licensing process conducted by FUFA.

In the sporting criteria, Vipers need to have a youth team, medical care for players, player and children protection and welfare and a women’s team.

In the infrastructure criteria, the clubs playing at the continent need to have a stadium that meets the requirements, a training facility and office space.

They’re required to have a functioning secretariat with a full-time General manager or chief executive officer and a finance, media and digital, safety and security and a medical officer.

The club has all of the above apart from the women’s team.

Alternative

While the CAF licensing requires that a team has a women’s team, it doesn’t restrict it to owning.

Article 27 of the regulations state;

“1. The licence applicant must have at minimum one (01) women’s first team participating in a competition sanctioned by the Licensor.

It further adds that, “To comply with this requirement, the licence applicant may: a. operate the women’s team(s) itself or b. have a written agreement with another entity who operates the team(s).

Section two provides that: “The Women´s first team must take part in official competitions or programs played at the national, regional or local level and recognised by the CAF member association.”

That means that Vipers can circumvent this hurdle by entering into an agreement with any existing women’s team in the FUFA ranks.

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