A total of 42 out of the 56 CAF member associations entered this season's CAF Champions League, with the 12 highest ranked associations according to their CAF 5-year ranking eligible to enter two teams in the competition.[2] For this season, the CAF utilized the 2017–2021 CAF 5-year ranking, which calculated points for each entrant association based on their clubs’ performance over those 5 years in the CAF club competitions. The criteria for points were as follows:[3][4][5]
Associations are shown according to their 2017–2021 CAF 5-year ranking – those with a ranking score have their rank and score (in parentheses) indicated.
Associations eligible to enter two teams (Top 12 associations)
Cameroon (CMR): The 2020–21 Elite One didn't conclude by the CAF deadline. As a result, the Cameroonian Football Federation announced that Fovu de Baham, who were at first place by 8 August 2021, will represent Cameroon in the 2021–22 CAF Champions League.[7]
Kenya (KEN): The 2020–21 FKF Premier League didn't conclude by the CAF deadline. As a result, the Football Kenya Federation announced that Tusker, who were at first place on the league table on 30 June 2021, will represent Kenya in the 2021–22 CAF Champions League.[9]
The draw for the qualifying rounds was held on 13 August 2021 at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[10][11][12]
In the qualifying rounds, each tie was played on a home-and-away two-legged basis. If the aggregate score is tied after the second leg, the away goals rule was applied, and if still tied, extra time won't be played, and the penalty shoot-out was used to determine the winner (Regulations III. 13 & 14).[2]
^The match involving Guinean clubs were played over a single leg, and not in the Guinean territory due to the political and security situation in Guinea following the 2021 Guinean coup d'état.[13]
In the group stage, each group was played on a home-and-away round-robin basis. The winners and runners-up of each group advanced to the quarter-finals of the knockout stage.
Tiebreakers
The teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers were applied in the following order (Regulations III. 20 & 21):[2]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
^ abHead-to-head points: Al Hilal 3, Al Merrikh 3. Head-to-head goal differences: Al Hilal 0, Al Merrikh 0. Head-to-head away goals: Al Hilal 1, Al Merrikh 0
The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:
In the draw for the quarter-finals, the four group winners were seeded, and the four group runners-up were unseeded. The seeded teams were drawn against the unseeded teams, with the seeded teams hosting the second leg. Teams from the same group cannot be drawn against each other, while teams from the same association can be drawn against each other.
In the draws for semi-finals, there were no seedings, and teams from the same group or the same association could be drawn against each other. As the draws for the quarter-finals and semi-finals were held together before the quarter-finals were played, the identity of the quarter-final winners was not known at the time of the semi-final draw.
The bracket was decided after the draw for the knockout stage (quarter-finals and semi-finals), which was held on 5 April 2022, 13:00 GMT (15:00 local time, UTC+2), at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[14]
