Ghana Premier League (GPL) side Asante Kotoko will travel away to Mauritania to face FC Nouadhibou for their first test of the 2020-21 Caf Champions League campaign.
The draw for the preliminary round of the elite continental inter-club championship was conducted in the Egyptian capital of Cairo on Monday.
Kotoko’s first leg trip away is set for the weekend of November 27-29, a week before the return fixture in Ghana.
The winners over two legs will square off against the ultimate victors of the clash between Al Hilal Club of Sudan and Ugandan outfit Vipers in December and January.
Nouadhibou are the 2019-20 Mauritania Ligue 1 champions, their eighth time winning the national league.
Ashanti Gold, Ghana’s only other club in Africa in the 2020-21 season, have been pitted against Salitas FC of Burkina Faso in the preliminary round of the Caf Confederation Cup.
The winners over two legs will have a date with El Amal of Sudan or KVZ FC of Zanzibar in the next round of the competition.
Salitas, the runners-up of the 2018-19 Burkinabe Premier League, got the nod to represent their country in the Confederation Cup due to the premature termination of the Burkina Faso Cup whose winners were to have received the ticket for the continental championship.
Owing to the premature termination of the 2019-20 Ghana Premier League (GPL) season due to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, Ghana were similarly unable to decide their representatives for the 2020-21 Caf competitions on the pitch.
At a Ghana Football Association (GFA) Executive Council meeting in June, it was decided that Kotoko fly Ghana’s flag in the Champions League while Ashanti Gold represent the country in the Caf Confederation Cup.
Kotoko and AshGold were chosen based on their status as Ghana’s representatives for the continental competitions last season after they won the 2019 GFA Normalisation Committee Special Competition Tier 1 and Tier 2 titles respectively.
Ghana’s performance in Africa last season was, however, disappointing as Kotoko were eliminated from the Champions League in the first round by Tunisian club Etoile Sahel while AshGold were similarly knocked out of the Confederation Cup in the first round by RS Berkane of Morocco.
Source: goal.com
