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The draw in football club competitions takes place next week at the new premises of African football in Egypt
Representatives of three Egyptian clubs -- Ismaili, Baladiyet Al-Mehalla and Ahli -- will join other African clubs officials on 10 July in the first African club competitions draw to be held at the new CAF headquarters in 6 October City, writes Eric Asomugha .
Ismaili is Egypt's only flag-bearer in the Champions League following the surprise elimination of defending champions Zamalek by Simba of Tanzania in the second round. Baladiyet and Ahli are in the race for the Winners Cup and CAF Cup respectively.
In the Champions League, the eight qualifiers will be divided into two groups in a round-robin system. The top two clubs in each group go straight to the semi-final before the final.
For both the African Cup Winners Cup and CAF Cup, the eight qualifiers from round 16 will be drawn to meet in the quarter-finals on a knockout basis leading to the final.
The eight teams in the Champions League are Ismaili, Canon Yaounde of Cameroon, ASEC of Côte d'Ivoire, USMA of Algeria, AS Aviacao of Angola, Enyimba of Nigeria, Esperance of Tunisia and Simba of Tanzania.
The Winners Cup includes Baladiyet, Power Dynamos of Zambia, Ashanti Kotoko of Ghana, APR of Rwanda, Africa Sports of Côte d'Ivoire, Wydad of Morocco, Julius Berger of Nigeria and Etoile Sahel of Tunisia.
In the CAF Cup race are Ahli, Green Buffaloes of Zambia, Black Rhinos of Zimbabwe, JS Kabylie of Algeria, Raja Casablanca of Morocco, Club Africain of Tunisia, Coton Sport of Cameroon and Enugu Rangers of Nigeria.
Meanwhile, Egypt was one of nine teams exempted from the African Nations Cup 2006/World Cup preliminary draw held on 27 June in Paris.
Four of the nine teams -- Egypt, Morocco, Congo DR and Côte d'Ivoire -- were exempted based on their positions in the latest FIFA/Coca Cola world ranking released 25 June.
The other five African teams took part in the 2002 Korea/Japan World Cup -- Nigeria, South Africa, Cameroon, Senegal and Tunisia.
Forty-two teams will participate in the preliminary round to be played in October and November on a home and away basis. The nine exempted national teams will join the 21 qualifiers from the preliminaries for the group matches. The 30 national associations for the group matches will be divided into five groups of six teams each.
In March, the CAF agreed that the top team in each of the five groups will qualify automatically for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. And the top three teams in each group of the qualifying draw will qualify for the 2006 African Cup of Nations.
