Due to FIFA expanding its Club World Cup competition to 32 teams and having it scheduled for June and July that year, this edition of the tournament will be played between 21 December 2025 and 18 January 2026.[4] The situation has been further complicated by the addition of two extra match days scheduled for the last two weeks of January in the expanded Champions League that begins next season in Europe.[5] That means the traditional window for Afcon in mid-January to mid-February (when the knockout stages of the Champions League are due to start) is likely to cause even more disruption than usual.
This edition of the tournament was scheduled to be the second after 2019 to take place during the northern hemisphere's summer, in order to reduce scheduling conflicts with European club teams and competitions;[6] the previous 2023 edition was moved to January and February 2024 owing to the adverse summer weather conditions in Ivory Coast.[7] Guinea was originally set as hosts for this edition of the tournament, but had its hosting rights stripped after affirming its inadequacy of hosting preparations.[8][9] After a second bidding process,[10] Morocco was named as the new hosts on 27 September 2023.[11]Ivory Coast are the defending champions.[12]
Host selection
CAF stripped Cameroon from hosting the 2019 edition of the tournament on 30 November 2018 due lack of speed of progress in preparations,[13] but accepted former CAF president Ahmad Ahmad's request to stage the next edition in 2021. Consequently, the original hosts of 2021, Ivory Coast, became hosts of the 2023 edition with Guinea instead hosting the 2025 edition, which until then had no hosts.[14] The CAF President confirmed the timetable shift after a meeting with Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara in Abidjan, Ivory Coast on 30 January 2019.[15] On 30 September 2022, current CAF president Patrice Motsepe announced that Guinea had been stripped as host for the 2025 edition due to inadequacy and speed of progress in hosting preparations.[8] Consequently, a new process was re-opened for a replacement host bidder.[10][16] On 27 September 2023, the 2025 edition was awarded to Morocco[11] and the 2027 edition to Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.[17][18]
Qualification
On 18 February 2024, CAF released the procedures for the preliminary round and its draw which was held at its headquarters in Cairo, Egypt two days later, i.e. 20 February. The group stage draw took place on 4 July 2024 in Johannesburg, South Africa. All CAF member associations entered the competition, except Eritrea and Seychelles, who were excluded from the qualifiers. The seeding was based on the FIFA World Ranking from 15 February 2024, with teams ranked 1st to 44th received a bye to the qualifying group stage, while the teams ranked 45th to 52nd had to participate in the preliminary round.
Qualified teams
The following teams have qualified for this edition of the tournament.
The top two teams of each group, along with the best four third-placed teams, will advance to the round of 16.
Tiebreakers
Teams will be ranked according to the three points for a win system (3 points for a win, 1 for a draw, 0/none points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 74):[19]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, if two teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are applied exclusively to these two teams;
^"AFCON moves to winter due to Club World Cup". ESPN.com. 21 June 2024. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
^"AFCON 2025 gets summer dates in Morocco". Afrik Foot. 21 February 2024. Retrieved 10 March 2024.
^"AFCON 2025 to be scheduled forJuly-August 2025 in Morocco". africanews. 20 February 2024. Retrieved 10 March 2024.
^Aarons, Ed; Molina, Romain; Aarons, Exclusive by Ed (12 June 2024). "Afcon could move to December 2025 to avoid Club World Cup clash". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
^"CAF President Dr Motsepe announces African Super League launch details, AFCON 2023 and Champions League key decisions" (Press release). CAFOnline.com. 3 July 2022. Archived from the original on 3 July 2022. Retrieved 3 June 2023. ...the Executive Committee has decided that this edition of the tournament (the 2023 edition) will be postponed to the months of January and February 2024. The postponement is as a direct and sole result of the adverse weather conditions in the country and after also having received further technical opinion from experts on adverse effects of staging the matches in that period, as June and July are rainy seasons in Ivory Coast.
^"Africa Cup of Nations to switch from January staging to June in 2019". The Guardian. 21 July 2017. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
^Southby, Ben (3 July 2022). "Africa Cup of Nations 2023 finals have been postponed and moved to January 2024 due to weather concerns in Ivory Coast". Eurosport. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
^ ab"CAF President discusses withdrawal by CAF of AFCON Guinea 2025 with Guinea Transition President". CAFOnline.com. 30 September 2022. Archived from the original on 27 January 2023. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
^"Guinea stripped of 2025 Africa Cup of Nations: CAF president". beIN Sports. 30 September 2022. Retrieved 23 December 2022.
^ ab"CAF re-opens bidding process for the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations 2025 hosting rights". CAFOnline.com. 26 October 2022. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
^ ab"Morocco to host 2025 Africa Cup of Nations". CAFOnline.com. 27 September 2023. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
^"Nigeria 1–2 Ivory Coast: Sebastien Haller seals Africa Cup of Nations final comeback for host nation". Sky Sports. 12 February 2024. Archived from the original on 12 February 2024. Retrieved 15 February 2024.
^"Cameroon stripped of hosting 2019 Africa Cup of Nations". BBC Sport. 30 November 2018. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
^"CAN 2019 : le pays hôte sera connu le 9 janvier" [CAN 2019: the host country will be known on January 9]. Le Monde (in French). 10 December 2018. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
^"Cote d'Ivoire agrees CAF timetable shift". CAFOnline.com. 30 January 2019. Archived from the original on 11 January 2022. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
^Diallo, Abubakr (1 October 2022). "CAF : qui va organiser la CAN 2025 retirée à la Guinée ?" [CAF: who will organize the CAN 2025 withdrawn from Guinea?]. Afrik Foot (in French). Retrieved 1 December 2022.
^"Tanzania, Uganda & Kenya to host 2027 TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations". CAFOnline.com. 27 September 2023. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
^"Morocco, East African nations win Africa Cup of Nations hosting rights". France 24. 27 September 2023. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
^Nassar, Khaled (21 October 2021). "Regulations of the Africa Cup of Nations" (PDF). CAFOnline.com. Retrieved 11 January 2022.