The 2020–21 CAF Confederation Cup group stage started on 10 March and ended on 28 April 2021.[1] A total of 16 teams competed in the group stage to decide the eight places in the knockout stage of the 2020–21 CAF Confederation Cup.[2]
The draw for the group stage was held on 22 February 2021, 13:00 GMT (15:00 local time, UTC+2), at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[3] The 16 teams, which consist of the 15 winners of the play-off round of qualifying and defending champions RS Berkane, were drawn into four groups of four.
The teams were seeded by their performances in the CAF competitions for the previous five seasons (CAF 5-year ranking points shown in parentheses). Each group contained one team from each of Pot 1, Pot 2, Pot 3, and Pot 4, and each team was allocated to the positions in their group according to their pot:
In each group, teams play against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The winners and runners-up of each group will advance to the quarter-finals of the knockout stage.
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers are 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 are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
The schedule of each matchday is as follows.[1] Kick-off times are fixed at 13:00, 16:00 and 19:00 GMT.
During the Islamic holy month Ramadan (12 April – 12 May), CAF gave clubs the option to play their home matches late in the day to avoid having large number of players fasting during matches.
^The Al Ahly Benghazi v Enyimba match, originally scheduled to be played on 21 April 2021 at 21:00 local time (UTC+2), was postponed for 24 hours due to unavailability of direct flights from Nigeria to Libya, which prevented Enyimba from appearing for the match in time.[7]
^The Salitas v ASC Jaraaf match, originally scheduled to be played on 11 April 2021, was postponed for 24 hours due to the 2021 Beninese presidential election.[8]