Nigeria football lovers can now smile after Heartland football club book a semi-final ticket in this years CAF champions league. We can now shift our attention from The super eagles and concentrate on given our full support to the local clubsides because they are making us proud.

Kano pillars too. They beat zambian club today 3 - 2

This is good ooo hope they will not be facing each other.

Thats what am praying for too. Lets see if we can have two nigerian clubs at the final.

I was particularly impressed with Kano pillars fighting spirit after scoring their late minutes goal which ensured them a place in the semis's. Hope one of the teams will go all d way & do Nigeria proud by winning d CAF champions league. Good luck

Yeah that's it, don't want people to think that it's only Eyimba we have as a club in Nigeria!!!

Yes ooo i want other teams to win it tooo and you people should not forget bayelsa united,they have one more match to play. They won their last match and they are currently in third position now. Only two points seperates them from the top spot and one point separates them from the second spot.

Are there competents 2's and 11's in the contintenal team.Honestly we need to inject a left full back and a left winger in the national team.

That will be a good idea coz our supe eagles team is lacking natural wingers ever since we lost Finidi George & Tijani Babangida to retirement, since then we hv been struggling. Only hope d chicken eagles coach has been watching the three Nigerian clubsides playing in CAF champions league and Confederation cup.

Very good.

Most teams in Europe this days do not use wingers. Apart from the Orange men, most high profile national sides do not use wingers.

Is Nigeria playing her world cup qualifiers in Europe Andrew? Beside, how hv we fared so far ever since we stopped operating from the wings. This should be d questions we shld be asking ourselves. we are not playing in Europe for now, so must employ strategies dat can see us thru.

Thanks a lot Waooo, every team makes use of what is available. Nigerian in the past had had legendary wingers for example: Segu Odegbami, C.Temile, Owolabi, Amasiemeka, Okosieme, Edobor, Elahor,Amunike, Finidi etc.
But at the moment, virtually non exist. So what do we do?.

thats so cool. It'll be great 2 have 2 Nigerian teams in the final. Goodluck guys!

I'm really happy for Heartland & Kano Pillars.

Wish them best of luck in the semi-finals.

hollandis:

Are there competents 2's and 11's in the contintenal team.Honestly we need to inject a left full back and a left winger in the national team.

waooo:

Is Nigeria playing her world cup qualifiers in Europe Andrew? Beside, how hv we fared so far ever since we stopped operating from the wings. This should be d questions we shld be asking ourselves. we are not playing in Europe for now, so must employ strategies dat can see us thru.

True talk. We all remember our U.S.A 94 teams as being both physically strong and quite skilful. Our skills came from our wingers (Findi George and Emmanuel Amunike) and Augustine Okocha.

I can't begin to Imagine what Amodu would give to have players of that quality in his squad.

Go Heartland FC!!!

http://www.cafonline.com/football/news/3366-caf-executive-committee-decisions.html


CAF Executive Committee decisions


The Executive Committee of CAF met on September 10 and 11 in Cairo under the chairmanship of president Issa Hayatou. The meeting examined the decisions taken by the different standing committees .

After a rich and fruitful deliberation, the following decisions were taken:

INTER CLUB COMITTEE

The Committe approved the new proposals for the remuneration of teams participating in the Orange Champions League 2009 as follows :

Classification
Remuneration

Winner
1,500,000

Finalist
1,000,000

Semi-finalist
700,000

Third in the group
500,000

Fourth in the group
400,000


The amount to be received by the winner moves from 1000000 US Dollars to 1500000 US Dollars, indicating a rise of 50%.

Though d amount is small compared to what is obtainable in the European champions league, its still ok as its good for d development of African football.

Heartland/ Pillars pls, grab d amount at stake. Good Luck & justify d no 1 rating in Africa.

waooo:

Though d amount is small compared to what is obtainable in the European champions league, its still ok as its good for d development of African football.

Heartland/ Pillars pls, grab d amount at stake. Good Luck & justify d no 1 rating in Africa.

http://www.goal.com/en/news/89/africa/2009/09/14/1499874/african-debate-improved-caf-champions-league-cash-prize


[size=16pt]African Debate: Improved CAF Champions League Cash Prize Still Not Good Enough[/size]


The CAF Champions League is one of the longest running continental club competitions in world football. It first started out as the African Champions Cup in 1964, before it was redesigned to its current format in 1997.

In between this period, there were hardly sponsors for the tournament and no prize money was paid to the clubs, who were mainly motivated by prestige and the quest for sporting glory to do well.

However, since the continent's flagship club competition took on its present format where the eight top teams qualifying for the money-spinning group phase then go onto a knockout semi-final and a final played over two legs, the overall winners are guaranteed a prize money of 1 million US Dollars.

Last week, the CAF Executive committee put this amount up by 50% beginning from next year's edition (actually this year's edition see http://www.cafonline.com/football/news/3366-caf-executive-committee-decisions.html) of the annual tournament. This was possible because of the appointment of new title sponsors for the competition.

CAF have made giant strides since Issa Hayatou took over the leadership of the organisation in 1988, but it must be stressed that despite the many gains of CAF in all these years, the organisation have fallen far short in the marketing of their commercial rights.

Like other football confederations, CAF rely on an exclusive marketing agent to sell their commercial properties. But we are also aware that there have been allegations of compromises on the part of the leadership CAF in respect of this partnership.

One would have expected that CAF would be transparent about their sponsorship earnings, making public all the details of how much a sponsor has committed to their various competitions and events. But that has not been the case and this has fuelled more speculation that a lot of money meant for football in Africa is being paid under the table into private pockets.

Better marketing would mean more money for CAF and more money for the clubs and the players.

Officials are often quick to argue that CAF are lagging far behind the likes of Asia Football Federation (AFC) and the European Football Union (UEFA) because the African economy cannot compare with that of those continents.

Yet, the difference between these continents as regards cash prizes is like darkness and light, there is simply no basis for comparison.

UEFA pay each team that qualify for their Champions League 3 million Euros and another 2.4 million Euros for reaching the group phase. A group stage win is worth €600,000 and a draw is worth €300,000.

In addition, UEFA pay each quarterfinalist €2.5 million, €3 million for each semi-finalist, €4 million for the runners-up and €7 million for the winners.

In Asia, the total budget for this year's Champions League is $20 million. Of that, 70 per cent is dedicated to prize money and incentives, with the eventual winners taking home $1.5 million plus bonuses from earlier rounds. A victory in the group stages will be worth $40,000.

On face value, 1 million Dollars is a small fortune, but when one computes the cost of travel across Africa for a club, as well as the ever-rising costs of running such a club, this cash prize is already overdrawn before a club has played its final group matches.

For example, the annual budget for an average club in Nigeria is around 2 million Dollars. This is to cover their travel and boarding within the country, as well as the general running of the club - players' salaries and bonuses, hiring of match venues, taxes, medical expenses, indemnities for referees, among other expenditure.

South African clubs have been known to withdraw or show less enthusiasm for the competition, because one of their several local tournaments earn them far more than they would get featuring in the CAF Champions League.

Generally, most clubs have, therefore, in the past 12 years operated deficit budgets to compete in the Champions League and one would then have expected that their patience and perseverance would have been better rewarded by the competition organisers with a cash prize far in excess of the 1.5 million Dollars thats next year's (this year's)Champions League winners will receive.

Officials complain of the football talent drain from Africa, but if they cannot help to improve the working conditions on the continent through such measures like better remuneration for the clubs, African players will prefer to take up the slave contracts that are pushed at some of them in Europe and beyond.

Andre Uweh:

Most teams in Europe this days do not use wingers. Apart from the Orange men, most high profile national sides do not use wingers.

It is a taboo for orange national team to recruit unskilled players.If a team is not operating from the wing,then every player in the team must be skillful.Apart from osaze,uche and obasi how many national team players are ball jugglers?

hollandis:

It is a taboo for orange national team to recruit unskilled players.If a team is not operating from the wing,then every player in the team must be skillful.Apart from osaze,uche and obasi how many national team players are ball jugglers?

Emphasis should be on talents available. The orange (oranje) men continues to use wingers because they have them in abundance.
The orange team that won the European nations cup in 1988 had F.Rychkaard, Marco Van Basten and Ruud Gullit who were not wingers.
  Nigeria can do without wingers if we do not have quality in that aspect but quality in other areas. Thank you.

the boys try no be small.

unfortunately pillars and heartland are to clash in the CAF semi-final on the 10th of october. What many Nigerians have prayed shouldn't happen, but heartland's inability to win their last group match against monomotapa of Zimbabwe resulted to them coming second in group B standing where as pillars drew their last group game away to Zesco of Zambia to top group A. At least one Nigeria team will play in the this yrs final.

It has happened before in Nigeria when Rangers and Shooting stars played against one another during the 70'S CUP WINNERS CUP.
In Europe, this happens all the time for Example Chelsea vs Liverpool.

well, lets hope one of d teams go all d way to win d CAF Champions league. Bayelsa too are not doing badly, they also booked a semi- final ticket in confederation cup

congrats to them.

i hope one of them will qualify for the final or even both of them

Both of them cant qualify

they'll have to knock each other out!!

They are already pitched against each other

so only one Nigerian club team will be in the Final

I wish them the best of luck!

Nigeria's club football is improving, thanks to the efforts of Obaseki and his team.