Pirates to get advantage for R11,3 million wallet

Orlando Pirates will play their second round of qualifying matches in the CAF Champions League with the wind blowing in their favour again.

Pirates play Namibian champions African Stars in the round to determine who then proceeds to the group stages of the competition.

READ | Pirates keep Champions League journey alive

That makes this tie worth USD700 000 (approx. R11,3 million), which is what CAF pays for reaching the round robin stage of the Champions League. 

The two legs will be played on October 16-18 and October 23-25.

African Stars have former Mamelodi Sundowns goalkeeper Ronnie Kanalelo as their head coach.

Kanalelo is a familiar in South African football as he was under the books of Mamelodi Sundowns as a player from the start of the 1997/98 season through to the end of the 2004/05 campaign.

The Brazilians were the only club he played for.

From there, he went on to be involved as goalkeeper coach at Bloemfontein Celtic and Maritzburg United before leaving disgruntled. 

To book their date with Pirates, African Stars overcame Gabonese opponents AS Mangasport on the away goals after scoring twice without response in the second leg after suffering a 3-1 defeat in the first leg.

That second leg was played at the Lucas Masterpieces Moripe Stadium.

Notable is that there are no CAF approved stadia in Namibia which is why they were forced to play their home match in Pretoria.

They are likely to also play their home match (first leg) against Pirates in South Africa, which will be a repeat of what happened last season with Lioli of Lesotho.

READ | Agent speaks out on PSL top scorer

The other option for the Namibians will be to play their home match in neighbouring Botswana. 

Then just like La Cure Waves, Stars also operate on a low budget which doesn’t compare to Pirates. 

Photo: Daniel Hlongwane/Gallo Images

Related tags

Abdeslam Ouaddou African Stars FC Caf Champions League Orlando Pirates Fc Ronnie Kanalelo