No discussion yet on the away goals rule: Caf president Patrice Motsepe

Africa's football controlling body, the Confederation of African Football, is yet to decide whether it's time to do away with the away goals rule in its competitions. 

This was confirmed by Caf president Patrice Motsepe on the sidelines of the Cosafa AGM in Johannesburg on Friday. 

But the good news, especially for clubs that are regulars in the Caf interclub competitions — the Champions League and Confederation Cup — is that the prize money has been increased this year to mainly help counter travelling costs on the continent.

“Football worldwide is competing with other sports and you've got to score goals. You've got to discourage defending. That's my football opinion,” said Motsepe.

“Supporters go to the stadiums to see goals, supporters and lovers of football go to the stadiums for the exciting and the competitive world class football. But for now we're going to leave things (away goals rule) as they are. 

“We don't want to see clubs when they play at home defending. I would love to see clubs being significantly more offensive. Go and score goals, but of course your defence must be very good.

“You must be solid defensively as well, but I think the focus at this stage is to go and score goals. That's what make football worldwide quite exciting.”

Motsepe added Caf was aware that club owners are struggling with travelling costs associated with playing in the Champions League and Confederation Cup, hence they decided to up the prize money this year.

“We're increased the prize money for the Champions League by 60% to 70%. It was US$2.5m (about R49m) it's now in the excess of $4m (R78.5m) (for the winners). And we've increased the prize money for all competitions because we've got to have a level of excitement and competitiveness.

“I'm confident that the prize money has to be used to give the players more bonuses, pay them well and for people who are involved in the administration of football. It's very, very important.

“This is partly why we're introducing the Super League to make sure that there's more money for the players and we have to help with transport because there's a huge amount of money being spent on the continent when there's national teams and club events. That's where the money helps.

“But in the Super League all of those countries that are going to participate are going to get $1m (R19.6m) from day one to help them to buy players and also to help with transport. It's a very simply proposition.

“Improvement on the quality of football in Africa depends on getting more sponsors, more partners coming in and investing more money. We should use more money to pay players and we should keep some of the best players on the continent, keep them in Africa because we can pay comparative salaries.

“I know this because over the last 20 years when I was actively involved in Mamelodi Sundowns we knew that the Scandinavian countries were not paying players as much as we do. 

“Of course there are some of those countries in Europe where they'll pay significantly more. Let them go to Europe but I'm confident that with more resources, more revenue coming in from broadcasting and other the sponsors, we're going to use that money to invest in players.

“We can't keep on buying expensive players. It doesn't make commercial sense, but the best thing to do is to get them young ... age nine, age 13 for both girls and boys.”

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