2025 Africa Cup of Nations

2025 Africa Cup of Nations
كأس الأمم الإفريقية 2025
ⵜⴰⵇⴱⵓⵛⵜ ⵏ ⵜⴻⴼⵔⵉⵇⵜ ⵏ ⵢⵉⵖⵍⴰⵏⴻⵏ 2025
Coupe d'Afrique des Nations 2025
Tournament details
Host countryMorocco
Dates21 December 2025 –
18 January 2026
Teams24
Venue(s)6 (in 6 host cities)
← 2023
2027 →

The 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, also referred to as AFCON 2025 or CAN 2025, is scheduled to be the 35th edition of the biennial African football tournament organised by the Confederation of African Football (CAF).[1] It will be hosted by Morocco for the second time and the first since 1988.[2] Morocco was originally scheduled to host the 2015 edition, but withdrew due to fears stemming from the Western African Ebola virus epidemic.[3]

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]

  1. ^ "AFCON moves to winter due to Club World Cup". ESPN.com. 21 June 2024. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  2. ^ "AFCON 2025 gets summer dates in Morocco". Afrik Foot. 21 February 2024. Retrieved 10 March 2024.
  3. ^ "AFCON 2025 to be scheduled forJuly-August 2025 in Morocco". africanews. 20 February 2024. Retrieved 10 March 2024.
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ "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.
  6. ^ "Africa Cup of Nations to switch from January staging to June in 2019". The Guardian. 21 July 2017. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Withdraw was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ "Guinea stripped of 2025 Africa Cup of Nations: CAF president". beIN Sports. 30 September 2022. Retrieved 23 December 2022.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Reopen was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ "Morocco to host 2025 Africa Cup of Nations". CAFOnline.com. 27 September 2023. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
  12. ^ "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.