WAC aim to maintain Moroccan momentum by beating Sundowns in African Football League final

The baggage handlers at OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg have been busy with silverware lately. The rugby union World Cup passed through their custody to be paraded before cheering crowds less than two weeks ago. There is cautious optimism South Africa’s in-form cricketers might soon be bringing home the equivalent trophy from India.

In between, football’s newest international prize has made its way through customs checks ready for presentation this weekend. The African Football League, AFL, launched this year as a pilot for what should become a fully-fledged African Super League will be lifted for the first time in Pretoria, its champions either Wydad of Casablanca, WAC, or the hosts of Sunday’s second leg of the final, Mamelodi Sundowns.

The main challenge for any fresh tournament is to eke out room for itself in football’s congested calendar and the AFL, whose slimline, inaugural version featured eight teams – one each from Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Nigeria, Angola, DR Congo, Tanzania and South Africa – in a two-legged knockout system has realised quickly the difficulties of muscling into restricted space.

While football’s constituency in South Africa is far broader than rugby’s or cricket’s, an awkward clash of scheduling threatened to obscure Sunday’s final.

The local league has assigned a Soweto derby, Kaizer Chiefs versus Orlando Pirates, the standout fixture in South African football, to this weekend. Once Sundowns reached the AFL final, the national broadcaster, the SABC, was facing the possibility that the decisive leg – delicately poised at 2-1 to WAC from the Casablanca meeting – would be obscured.

The derby would be filling Soccer City, the continent’s biggest stadium, at the same time as Loftus Versfeld, an