Nigeria’s representatives in this season’s CAF champions league Lobi Stars of Makurdi will face Cameroonian side Union Des Mouvements Sportifs de Loum (USM de Loum) in the preliminary round of the competition.

Lobi are away for the first leg scheduled to be played on 27/28 November with the return leg billed for 4/5 December.

Lobi Stars were selected to represent Nigeria in this season’s champions league following a decision by the League Management Company (LMC) in conjunction with all Nigerian Professional Premier League (NPFL) clubs and the Executive Committee of the Nigerian Football Federation to truncate the 2017/2018 NPFL season in order to beat a CAF deadline for the submission of representatives for inter-club competitions.

Lobi were selected on the basis of being top at the time the “league was deemed concluded at match day 24” and are making a return to Africa’s elite club competition after a hiatus of 18 years when they made the group stage (which used to be the semifinals in the old format) of the champions league in 2000.

They will be playing a side who weren’t even in existence when they were last in the champions league. UMS de Loum were founded in 2011 and finished runners-up behind Coton Sports in the Cameroonian Elite One in the 2017/2018 season and will be making a second ever appearance in the competition following a maiden appearance in 2017.