AFCON 2025 postponed to January 2026

Ivory Coast were the recent winners of the 2023 edition of AFCON.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) stated on Wednesday that the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations finals, 2025, would be rescheduled to begin in 2026, six months later than planned.

The 32-team FIFA Club World Cup which will take place in the United States from June 15–July 13, will conflict with the 2025 AFCON finals in Morocco, which were scheduled to take place in June of next year.

At the Club World Cup, Africa will field four clubs and many of those athletes will probably be chosen for the national sides in the AFCONs as well.

Before General Secretary Veron Mosengo-Omba informed the BBC that the Nations Cup finals would take place in early 2026, CAF was questioned about the apparent conflict on several occasions but was unable to provide a resolution.

This will be devastating for Morocco, which was expecting to use a summer competition to showcase its growing tourism sector and demonstrate its capacity to organise a major event in advance of its co-hosting of the 2030 FIFA World Cup with Portugal and Spain.

“We can play after the Club World Cup, but is this good for the interests of the players who have played all the season and then they travel to America to play (and then) immediately come to play Afcon?,” Mosengo-Omba said.

“Scheduling is a nightmare for everybody,” Mosengo-Omba told the BBC.

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The incapacity of CAF to set dates for the women’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals, which will take place in Morocco this year, has also drawn criticism. The African Football competition, the continent’s brand-new super competition that debuted last year, is likewise shrouded in mystery.

In a knockout competition compressed into two months, eight chosen clubs competed for prize money that broke records.

While CAF President Patrice Motsepe had stated that the following iteration would comprise 24 teams, the organisation said on Tuesday that the African Football League’s and Confederation Cup’s group rounds will take place from October to December of the next year.

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