CAFCL: Mogadishu City coach Ali Abubakar urges CAF to scrap away goals rule

Mogadishu City head coach Abdirahman Ali Abubakar has prevailed upon the Confederation of African Football (CAF) do away with away goals rule after his suffered elimination from the CAF Champions League campaign in the first round.

Playing against Kenyan champions Police FC, Mogadishu bowed out on the away goals rule after a 3-3 aggregate score line. The first leg between the two sides had ended in a 3-1 victory in favour of the Kenyan side but in the return leg, they battled to win 2-0 for a 3-3 aggregate result.

“CAF needs to look into the away-goals rule. When you look at other continents like Europe, it has been removed. You’ve equalised in the second leg, but you’re eliminated on away goals rather than aggregate score. It should be changed to give all countries a fair opportunity to qualify,” said Abubakar as quoted by Citizen Digital.

Mogadishu City will come back stronger

On his Champions League experience, he said: “This is my second year in the CAF competitions,” he explained. “I may be young, but I believe if we win our league again, we’ll come back stronger.

“Last year we were in the Confederation Cup, and this year the Champions League preliminaries. We are learning and improving.”

Police coach Etienne Ndayiragije was happy his team managed to progress. He said: “We thank God we were able to safeguard our advantage. Our biggest mistake was attacking so much up front, which hurt our defence when falling back, but we’re grateful to proceed.”

Another Kenyan club Nairobi United, qualified to the second round of the Confederation Cup because of the away goals rule.