Sundowns Ladies arrive in Egypt for the 2026 Women’s Champions League carrying the record of the competition’s first champions. The South African club won the inaugural edition five years ago in Cairo, beating seven other sides to the crown, and this year’s event brings the tournament back to Egypt for a third time.
The prize structure has changed since then. The African champion will advance to the first-ever Women’s Club World Cup, scheduled for Miami in January, and that carrot sits squarely in front of the team as they begin their fortnight in Egypt. Goalkeeper Andile “Sticks” Dlamini, an international who has been part of the club’s continental story, is candid about what victory could unlock.
“It opens the door for a whole lot of things if you win this, not only the Club World Cup. We’ve seen many players who have competed in the African Champions League go on to be signed by clubs overseas,” Dlamini told FORBES AFRICA.
She frames the tournament as a stage as much as a contest. “This is a competition you want to take part in for many reasons, and one of them is just to be seen by the clubs in Europe and the U.S.”
Delivery on the pitch, though, will not be simple. Dlamini expects a far stiffer test than the field the club faced when it claimed the first title. “There has been a massive improvement in the standard of women’s football, not only on the field but off the fields too in terms of the added incentives for the clubs and players at the Champions League,” she says. In her view the changes reflect a sport gaining ground: “It shows that women’s football is growing and is being taken seriously. There has been so much improvement in how women are treated.”
The campaign sits within a longer competitive record that has made the club a reference point in African women’s football. After their breakthrough title, the Sundowns ladies added a second Champions League triumph in 2023 and finished as runners-up in 2022. The streak stalled last year when the team failed to qualify for the tournament, making this return to the field a chance to re-establish their standing.
Meanwhile, there is a family matter inside the club. Sundowns’ men’s side have won two African Champions League titles, matching the women’s haul of two, and it is the women’s team that has the realistic chance of becoming the first in the club to lift a third. That ambition is spelled out plainly by Dlamini: “We are working on that third star.” Stars above the club badge mark each continental triumph, and a third would give the women’s team something the men’s team has yet to match.
So the fortnight in Egypt carries several layers at once: the chance to defend the legacy of that first win in Cairo, the pursuit of a third star, a route to Miami and a club World Cup, and a showcase for players hoping to attract interest from clubs abroad. Whether the tournament delivers on all of that will be settled over the coming weeks of competition.