This season follows a transitional calendar which allows the CAF club competitions to switch from a February-to-November schedule to an August–to-May schedule, as per the decision of the CAF Executive Committee on 20 July 2017.[2] It started in December 2018, right after the 2018 season has finished, and concluded in May 2019, before the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (which has been switched from January/February to June/July).[3]
were the defending champions, but were eliminated in the group stage.
Association team allocation
All 56 CAF member associations may enter the CAF Confederation Cup, with the 12 highest ranked associations according to their CAF 5-year ranking eligible to enter two teams in the competition.[4] As a result, theoretically a maximum of 68 teams could enter the tournament (plus 16 teams eliminated from the CAF Champions League which enter the play-off round) – although this level has never been reached.
For the 2018–19 CAF Confederation Cup, the CAF uses the 2013–2017 CAF 5-year ranking, which calculates points for each entrant association based on their clubs’ performance over those 5 years in the CAF Champions League and CAF Confederation Cup. The criteria for points are the following:[5][6][7]
Cameroon were also to be represented by Eding Sport, one of the 2018 Cameroonian Cup finalists, as the final was not played in time for the 2018–19 CAF competitions.[11] However, the Cameroonian Football Federation was not able to confirm the engagement of Eding Sport by the CAF deadline.[12]
Location of teams of the 2018–19 CAF Confederation Cup. Italics: Teams transferred from the 2018–19 CAF Champions League. Red: Preliminary round; Green: First Round; Purple: Play-off Round; Brown: Group A; Orange: Group B; Yellow: Group C;
Blue: Group D.
Schedule
The schedule of the competition is as follows (matches scheduled in midweek in italics).[17] Effective from the Confederation Cup group stage, weekend matches are played on Sundays while midweek matches are played on Wednesdays, with some exceptions. Kick-off times are also fixed at 13:00, 16:00 and 19:00 GMT.[18]
The draw for the preliminary round and first round was held on 3 November 2018 in Rabat, Morocco, and was officially announced by the CAF on 9 November due to a special situation with the transitional calendar.[22][23][24]
In the qualifying rounds, each tie was played on a home-and-away
extra time would not be played, and the penalty shoot-out would be used to determine the winner (Regulations III. 13 & 14).[4]
^Al-Ittihad won on walkover after Miracle Club withdrew prior to the second leg.[25]
^Asante Kotoko won on walkover after FECAFOOT was not able to confirm the engagement of their second representative by the CAF deadline.[26]
First round
As there were 16 winners of the Confederation Cup first round, but only 15 losers of the Champions League first round for this season, the winners of the first round with the best CAF 5-year ranking (in bold italics) advanced directly to the group stage.[27] The remaining 15 winners of the first round advanced to the play-off round, where they were joined by the 15 losers of the Champions League first round.
The draw for the play-off round was held on 28 December 2018, 18:00 CAT (UTC+2), at the Nile Ritz-Carlton in Cairo, Egypt.[28][29] The winners of the Confederation Cup first round were drawn against the losers of the Champions League first round, with the teams from the Confederation Cup hosting the second leg.[30]
The 15 winners of the play-off round advanced to the group stage to join Étoile du Sahel, who advanced directly to the group stage as the winners of the first round with the best CAF 5-year ranking.
The teams were seeded by their performances in the CAF competitions for the previous five seasons (CAF 5-year ranking points shown in parentheses). Each group contained one team from each of Pot 1 and Pot 2, and two teams from Pot 3, and each team was drawn into one of the positions in their group.
In the group stage, each group was played on a home-and-away round-robin basis. The winners and runners-up of each group advanced to the quarter-finals of the knockout stage.
Tiebreakers
The teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers were applied in the following order (Regulations III. 20 & 21):[4]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
extra time will not be played, and the penalty shoot-out will be used to determine the winner (Regulations III. 26 & 27).[4]
Bracket
The bracket was decided after the draw for the knockout stage (quarter-finals and semi-finals), which was held on 20 March 2019, 19:00 CAT (UTC+2), at the Marriot Hotel in Cairo, Egypt.[34][35]
In the quarter-finals, the winners of one group played the runners-up of another group (teams from same group could not play each other), with the group winners hosting the second leg, and the matchups decided by draw.