New dates set for AFCON 2025 in Morocco

Image: Fès stadium, KSKB1935, CC BY-SA 4.0

The 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament in Morocco will be held six months later than originally planned, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has revealed.

TRT Afrika said the next finals have been put back six months and will now be played from December 21, 2025 to January 18, 2026.

The Africa Cup of Nations referred to as AFCON, and sometimes as African Cup of Nations, is the main international men’s association football competition in Africa. It is sanctioned by the CAF and was first held in 1957.

The 2025 tournament in Morocco was supposed to take place in mid-year but has been moved because of FIFA’s new expanded Club World Cup with 32 teams in the United States next June and July.

CAF has also postponed the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations by 12 months to July 5-26 next year. That is also being hosted in Morocco.

Dates for the two tournaments have been keenly anticipated as CAF previously acknowledged struggling with a crowded international calendar.

CAF president Patrice Motsepe said, “I am confident that the CAF TotalEnergies AFCON Morocco 2025 will be extremely successful and will be the best AFCON in the history of this competition. I am also impressed by the enormous growth of Women’s Football in Africa and I am expecting the CAF TotalEnergies WAFCON Morocco 2024 to be immensely successful.

“The announcement of the dates of the AFCON in Morocco 2025 took much longer than expected, as there were complex and at times challenging discussions with various interested parties, in the light of the extensive international and domestic match calendars.

“CAF is committed to protecting and advancing the interests of African players, (who are) playing in football clubs in Europe and worldwide. CAF is also committed to building mutually beneficial relationships with the other football confederations and FIFA.”

TRT Afrika further stated that competing at AFCON in the middle of the European league season causes a dilemma for European-based African players, who have to decide between club or country.

To alleviate this, CAF previously decided the finals would be moved to mid-year, every odd year, from 2019 onwards.

But since the mid-year tournament in Egypt in 2019, African football’s governing body have gone back on their decision and hosted the last two finals in Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire at the start of the year.
 
The CAF EXCO also resolved to host the 46th CAF Ordinary General Assembly in Kinshasa, DRC on Thursday 10 October 2024. Decisions were also taken to open bids to host:

• The CAF Women’s Champions League 2024
• The CAF TotalEnergies U17 AFCON
• The CAF TotalEnergies U20 AFCON
• The CAF Awards 2024

 
CAF said it has received attractive proposals from the Middle East for hosting the CAF TotalEnergies Super Cup 2024 which will feature Egyptian giants, Al Ahly SC, Winners of the CAF TotalEnergies Champions League and Zamalek SC, Winners of the CAF TotalEnergies Confederation Cup.

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