CAF Women’s Champions League: Lekie Filles to open campaign with FUS Rabat test.

The championship will be organised in Egypt from November 1 to 15 with the eight participating clubs spread across two groups of four. 

Lekie Filles will kickstart the campaign in Group A against competition giant Mamelodi Sundowns Football Ladies of South Africa, home team Football Club Masar of Egypt and FUS Rabat.

The Yaounde-based selection which is the first Cameroonian club to compete in the final phase of the continental championship will kickstart the tournament with a showdown with FUS Rabat on November 1, pair the official calendar released on Tuesday. 

The fixture against the North African team is regarded as a tricky one for the multiple time Cameroon champion. This, observers argue, is despite the fact that the Moroccan capital city team will also be making its first ever appearance in the final phase of the competition since the showpiece was introduced five years ago.

The outfit has earned the respect thanks to the dominant performances that it has consistently registered in domestic competitions in Morocco over the last couple of years, and in its stellar displays in subregional competitions in North Africa recently. 

The team qualified for the preliminary phase of the forthcoming continental championship after finishing the 2025/2026 season as runner up in the Moroccan topflight championship just behind two-time African champions AS FAR. 

The club went on to dominate and resultantly emerge as the winner of the North African zonal preliminaries where it easily whitewashed Algeria’s CF Akbou, ASF Sousse of Tunisia and Egyptian team FC Masar. 

However, with Lekie Filles in high spirit after comfortably cruising through the Central African zonal preliminaries and later reinforcing later it squad with the signing of over six new players, the FUS Rabat challenge is however not regarded as an insurmountable one.

Sundowns more dangerous challengers 

Pundits hold the view that the Cameroonian club may however need to particularly up their game to secure one of the group’s two qualification tickets to the semifinals.

This, the African women’s football connoisseurs hold, is owing to the quality of the opposition that the Centre Region team will be facing against Mamelodi Sundowns and FC Masar in its two other group matches.

Sundowns which Lekie Filles will lock horns with on November 4 in their second match, is regarded as the most successful team in the championship.

The team won the first edition of the competition in 2021, finished as runner up in the second in 2022 and returned to reclaim the title in the third edition in 2023.

The outfit ranked fifth in the 2024 edition but completely failed to qualify for the 2025 tournament after struggling in the southern African zonal qualifying series.

The failure to reach the finals of the 2025 tournament was termed unacceptable by the team’s management and supporters. 

The anger provoked by the disappointment of the previous tournament is expected to serve as extra source of motivation for the southern African outfit heading into the 2026 showpiece. 

Enter FC Masar

Lekie Filles will face FC Masar on November 7 in their final group match in the pool. The northern African team is widely known for the ruthless results that it recorded in the two previous editions of the championship. 

The team finished third and fourth respectively in the 2024 and 2025 series. The side is therefore expected to build on the consistency and hard-earned notoriety to match to its first ever crown in the competition by the end of the 2026 tournament with Lekie Filles standing out as one of its potential victims.

The top-two teams from each group in the tournament will qualify for the semifinals. The overall winner of the competition will bag a qualification ticket for the 2027 edition of the FIFA Women’s Champions Cup, one of the biggest women’s club football competitions in the world.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3947 of Thursday October 22, 2026