All 54 CAF member associations may enter the competition, with the 12 highest ranked associations according to their CAF 5-year ranking eligible to enter two teams in the competition.[2] 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 2020–21 season, CAF utilized the 2016–2020 CAF 5-year ranking, which calculates points for each entrant association based on their clubs’ performance over the previous 5 seasons in CAF's club competitions. The criteria for points are as follows:[3][4][5]
Associations are shown according to their 2017–2021 CAF 5-year ranking – those with a ranking score have their rank and score (in parentheses) indicated.
Associations eligible to enter two teams (Top 12 associations)
^ abMatches involving Guinean clubs were played over a single leg in their opponent's country due to the political and security situation in Guinea following a coup d'état.[7]
^The first leg was originally scheduled to be played on 12 September 2021 at El-Obeid Stadium, El-Obeid, but was cancelled due to concerns over the suitability of the venue.[8] The match was played over a single leg at the venue for the second leg.
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):[14]
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 were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
^ abHead-to-head points: Al Ahli Tripoli 3, Pyramids 3. Head-to-head goal differences: Al Ahli Tripoli 0, Pyramids 0. Head-to-head away goals: Al Ahli Tripoli 1, Pyramids 0
The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:
In the draw for the quarter-finals, the four group winners were seeded, and the four group runners-up were unseeded. The seeded teams were drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the second leg. Teams from the same group could not be drawn against each other, while teams from the same association can be drawn against each other.
In the draws for semi-finals, there were no seedings, and teams from the same group or the same association could be drawn against each other. As the draws for the quarter-finals and semi-finals were held together before the quarter-finals were played, the identity of the quarter-final winners was not known at the time of the semi-final draw.
The bracket was decided after the draw for the knockout stage (quarter-finals and semi-finals), which was held on 5 April 2022, 13:00 GMT (15:00 local time, UTC+2), at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[15]
