The draw for the 2026/27 CAF Champions League group stage was made in Cairo on Wednesday, pairing Africa's 16 surviving clubs into four groups — and for Nigerian football, the headline is an absence. Neither NPFL champions Enugu Rangers nor runners-up Rivers United made it. For the first time in this season's competition, the group stage will be played without a single Nigerian club.
The draw, staged at the Egypt Football Association headquarters, was reported by Reuters and Pan-Africa Football. Group A pairs Espérance de Tunis with Angola's Petro de Luanda, Mauritania's FC Nouadhibou and Wiliete SC. Group B brings together Zamalek, Tanzania's Young Africans, MC Alger and Club Africain. Group C features RS Berkane, Simba, Orlando Pirates and Cameroon's Colombe Sportive, while Group D is headed by Pyramids FC alongside Al Hilal, Horoya AC and MAS de Fès. The group stage runs from late November to the end of January, the top two in each group reach the quarter-finals, and the champions will collect a record $6 million prize.
How Nigeria fell at the first hurdles
Rangers came agonisingly close. The Enugu side won the first leg of their second preliminary-round tie 2-0 in Abeokuta — with ten men for much of the match — only to collapse in Algiers, where MC Alger scored three second-half goals to win 3-2 on aggregate. As we reported in our report of that night in Algiers, goalkeeper Destiny Abuchi even saved a penalty before Mohamed Bangoura and Soufiane Bayazid struck late to complete the turnaround. Rivers United fared worse still: they were eliminated in the first preliminary round by Ivorian side FC San Pedro, drawing 1-1 away and 2-2 at home in Uyo to go out on away goals. Nigeria's two Champions League entrants were both gone before October was out — and the Confederation Cup representatives, including El-Kanemi Warriors, also exited in the preliminary rounds. CAF's doubled solidarity payment of $100,000 for each eliminated club is scant consolation.
A group stage full of storylines — none of them Nigerian
The 16 who remain carry the intrigue instead. Wiliete, the Angolan minnows who stunned the continent by eliminating the holders in qualifying — a story we covered in Sundowns' shock exit — land in Group A. Record champions Al Ahly are absent from this season's Champions League altogether. Horoya return to the group stage for the first time since 2021/22, MAS de Fès make their first appearance in the modern group format, and Pyramids — group D's headline act — begin as many people's favourites.
So what — a warning Nigeria cannot ignore
This is not a one-off embarrassment; it is a trend with a price tag. Nigeria's last CAF Champions League title was Enyimba's in 2004 — 22 years ago. Group-stage participation is where the money, the exposure and the player development now live in African club football, and while North African and Tanzanian clubs bank those rewards, NPFL sides are falling at the qualifying fence, sometimes — as Rivers United showed — at the very first one. The gap between Nigeria's domestic league and the continent's elite is no longer a talking point. It is printed in a draw that has no Nigerian name in it.
Beyond the Final Whistle verdict: a Champions League group stage without Nigeria is a verdict on the NPFL itself. Rangers' collapse in Algiers will sting, but the deeper problem is structural — travel, preparation and squad depth that cannot survive two-legged ties against organised opposition. Until Nigerian clubs treat the preliminary rounds as the competition, not a formality, Cairo draws will keep being made without them. Can an NPFL club reach the group stage next season — and what has to change first? Have your say in the comments.
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