AS FAR beat Mamelodi Sundowns 3-1 at the Suez Canal Stadium in Ismailia, Egypt, on Sunday, November 15, 2026, to retain the CAF Women’s Champions League title. FINAL: AS FAR 3, Mamelodi Sundowns 1.
How to watch: AS FAR vs Mamelodi Sundowns, Sunday, November 15 at Suez Canal Stadium, Ismailia
Competition: CAF Women’s Champions League final
Half-time: AS FAR 2, Mamelodi Sundowns 1
Join The iimiTV Letter
Enter your email and we will send you a confirmation link. Click it and your first edition lands on Friday.
Touriss Brace Settles CAF Women’s Champions League Final
Sundowns started the brighter of the two sides and created the first real chances. In the seventh minute Refilwe Tholakele found Ronnel Donnelly in the box, only for the striker to collide with a defender and the goalkeeper, and four minutes later Kholosa Biyana played Lelona Daweti in with only the keeper to beat, and Daweti shot off target. Those misses decided the shape of the afternoon.
AS FAR punished the second one. Imane Touriss opened the scoring in the 23rd minute, capitalising after Biyana lost the ball just outside her own box, her shot taking a deflection on its way past Sundowns goalkeeper Andile Dlamini, as recorded in the iDiski Times final report. The lead lasted two minutes. Nonhlanhla Mthandi set up Tholakele, who curled in a superb equaliser from a tight angle in the 25th minute. AS FAR went back in front in the 37th minute, Hiba Youssoufi given too much time and space in the box and finishing from a pass by captain Ghizlane Chebbak, again deflected past Dlamini, to make it 2-1 at half-time.
Sundowns changed goalkeepers at the break, Palesa Moletsane replacing the injured Dlamini, with Nthabiseng Majiya also coming on for Daweti. Majiya came closest to a second equaliser in the 67th minute, pouncing on a rebound only to see her effort deflected for a corner. Ten minutes later the final was settled: Fatima Tagnaout broke away on the right and played in Touriss, who slipped her second goal under Moletsane in the 77th minute to complete her brace and close the scoring at 3-1.
First Club To Defend The Title, First Club To Three
The records in Ismailia are the story. Flashscore’s final report records that Sundowns arrived hoping to become the first side to lift this trophy three times, and instead AS FAR claimed that honour, and became the first team to win the competition back-to-back. No club had retained the CAF Women’s Champions League since the tournament began in 2021: Sundowns won the first edition, AS FAR answered in 2022, Sundowns took it back in 2023, TP Mazembe won in 2024, and AS FAR reclaimed the crown in 2025 before defending it on Sunday.
Three titles, in 2022, 2025 and now 2026, move the Moroccan club clear as the most successful side in the competition’s short history, one ahead of Sundowns’ two. The final was also the second meeting between these two clubs in a final, and the pattern held: AS FAR beat Sundowns 4-0 in the 2022 final in Rabat, Sundowns answered with a 1-0 semi-final win in 2023, and Sunday’s 3-1 in Ismailia puts the Moroccan side back on top of the rivalry that has defined this tournament.
After that 2022 final, Sundowns’ then coach Jerry Tshabalala conceded the gap plainly: “Congratulations to AS FAR. They deserve it, they played better than us. I can’t fault my girls, we gave everything we could.” He added, on Morocco’s investment in the women’s game: “You can see they are reaping the rewards.” Four years on, with a third title and the first successful defence in the competition’s history, that reading of where the power sits in African women’s club football is harder to argue with than ever.
Champions Again After Losing Their Opening Match
What makes this title run distinct is how it started. AS FAR opened their tournament on November 2 with a 3-2 defeat to debutants Kawempe Muslim Ladies of Uganda, Agnes Nabukenya scoring twice, including a stoppage-time winner, after Tagnaout had given the champions a sixth-minute lead. The holders recovered to top their group, then beat Cameroon’s Lekie Football Filles 1-0 in the semi-final on November 11, Chebbak scoring the goal that sent them into a third successive final and a fourth final in six editions.
Sundowns’ road was the opposite shape: a commanding 4-1 semi-final win over Kawempe Muslim, built on Ronnel Donnelly’s nine-minute first-half hat-trick, sent them into the final as the form side, chasing a third title of their own. AS FAR are also the only club to have featured in every edition of this tournament since it began in 2021, reaching at least the semi-finals in each of their five previous appearances before this one, a consistency no other African women’s club has matched.
What The Title Sends AS FAR Into Next
The win carries US$600,000 in prize money, against US$400,000 for Sundowns. It also sends AS FAR into the second round of the FIFA Women’s Champions Cup 2027, where they face North Korea’s Naegohyang WFC in December. Win that playoff and the Moroccans reach the final phase in Miami in January, where Mexico’s Club America Femenil wait in the semi-finals, a route that would put the African champions directly against the best of North America.
For Sundowns, the season turns back home: they return to South Africa to play catch-up matches in the Hollywoodbets Super League, with the championship playoffs looming, carrying a second final defeat to AS FAR in four years. The Brazilians remain the competition’s second most successful club, but the order at the top is no longer shared. AS FAR stand alone on three titles, alone as champions in consecutive years, and alone as the side everyone else in Africa now has to catch.
References
iDiski Times, “ASFAR Defeat Sundowns To Defend Their CAFWCL Title,” November 15, 2026. Flashscore, “More Sundowns misery as FAR Rabat claim CAF Women’s Champions League,” November 15, 2026. Daily Express Uganda, “Kawempe Muslim stun champions AS FAR in historic Champions League debut,” November 2, 2026.
