# 2019 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations

The 2019 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations was the 13th edition of the Africa U-17 Cup of Nations (18th edition if tournaments without hosts are included), the biennial international youth football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for players aged 17 and below. In May 2015, it was decided that the tournament would be hosted by Tanzania.
Four teams of the tournament qualified for the 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Brazil as the CAF representatives. Cameroon won their second title.
Angola and Nigeria qualified for finishing third and fourth in the competition respectively. Defending champions Mali failed to qualify.
Following completion of the tournament, CAF ejected Guinea from the competition, and deleted its results from the records, for fielding players with passports which had a different date of birth to those the players had used in the U-16 age restricted 'International Dream Cup' in Japan. Senegal were given the remaining place at the U-17 World Cup as they had placed behind Guinea during the group stage.

## Qualification

The CAF decided in July 2017 that the format of the qualifying competition should be changed and split according to zones. The qualifiers were played between 19 July and 18 September 2018. At the end of the qualification phase, seven teams joined the hosts Tanzania.

### Player eligibility

Players born 1 January 2002 or later were eligible to participate in the competition.

### Qualified teams

The following eights teams qualified for the final tournament.
Note: All appearance statistics count only those since the introduction of final tournament in 1995.
| Team | Zone | Appearance | Previous best performance |
| Tanzania (hosts) | Central-East Zone | 2nd | Group stage (2017) |
| Morocco | North Zone | 2nd | Fourth place (2013) |
| Senegal | West A Zone | 2nd | Group stage (2011) |
| Guinea | West A Zone | 7th | Third place (1995, 2015, 2017) |
| Nigeria | West B Zone | 9th | Champions (2001, 2007) |
| Cameroon | Central Zone | 7th | Champions (2003) |
| Uganda | Central-East Zone | 1st | Debut |
| Angola | South Zone | 4th | Group stage (1997, 1999, 2017) |

## Venues

The matches were played in two venues.
| Cities | Venues | Capacity |
| Dar es Salaam | National Stadium | 60,000 |
| Mbagala, Dar es Salaam | Chamazi Stadium | 10,000 |

## Squads

Each squad can contain a maximum of 21 players.

## Draw

The draw of the final tournament was held on 20 December 2018, 19:30 EAT (UTC+3), at the Mlimani City Conference Centre in Dar es Salaam. The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. The hosts Tanzania were seeded in Group A and allocated to position A1, while 2017 third place Guinea were seeded in Group B and allocated to position B1 (2017 champions and runners-up Mali and Ghana did not qualify). The remaining six teams were seeded based on their results in the 2017 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations (final tournament and qualifiers), and drawn to any of the remaining three positions in each group.
| Seeds | Pot 1 | Pot 2 |
| Tanzania (hosts)  Guinea (2017 third place) | Cameroon  Angola | Morocco  Nigeria  Senegal  Uganda |

## Match officials

A total of 13 referees and 14 assistant referees were appointed for the tournament, including one women referee and two women assistant referees, which is the first time women officials were appointed in a CAF men's tournament.

## Group stage

The top two teams of each group advance to the semi-finals and qualify for the 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup.

### Tiebreakers

Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 72):
* Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
* Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
* Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
* If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
* Goal difference in all group matches;
* Goals scored in all group matches;
* Drawing of lots.
All times are local, EAT (UTC+3).

### Group A

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Nigeria | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 5 | +2 | 7 | Knockout stage and 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup |
| 2 | Angola | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 3 | +2 | 6 | Knockout stage and 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup |
| 3 | Uganda | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | +2 | 4 | |
| 4 | Tanzania (H) | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 12 | −6 | 0 | |

### Group B

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Cameroon | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 1 | +3 | 7 | Knockout stage and 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup |
| 2 | Guinea (D) | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 | Advanced to the knockout stage, but disqualified after the tournament. |
| 3 | Senegal | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | −1 | 2 | 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup |
| 4 | Morocco | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | −2 | 1 | |

## Knockout stage

In the knockout stage, penalty shoot-out (no extra time) was used to decide the winner if necessary (Regulations Article 73).

### Bracket

| Semi-finals | Semi-finals | Final | Final |
| 24 April – Dar es Salaam | 24 April – Dar es Salaam |
| Nigeria | 0 (9) |
| Nigeria | 0 (9) | 28 April – Dar es Salaam | 28 April – Dar es Salaam |
| Guinea (p) | 0 (10) | 28 April – Dar es Salaam | 28 April – Dar es Salaam |
| Guinea (p) | 0 (10) | Guinea | 0 (3) |
| 24 April – Dar es Salaam | 24 April – Dar es Salaam | | Guinea | 0 (3) |
| 24 April – Dar es Salaam | 24 April – Dar es Salaam | Cameroon (p) | 0 (5) |
| Cameroon (p) | 0 (4) | Cameroon (p) | 0 (5) |
| Angola | 0 (3) | | |
| Angola | 0 (3) | Third place match | Third place match |
| | | 27 April – Dar es Salaam | 27 April – Dar es Salaam |
| | | Nigeria | 1 |
| | | Angola | 2 |

### Final
## Winners

* 2019 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations
* Cameroon Second title

## Awards

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:
| Top Goalscorer | Most Valuable Player | Fair Play award |
| Capita | Stève Mvoué | Angola |

## Goalscorers

There were 36 goals scored in 16 matches, for an average of 2.25 goals per match.
4 goals
* Capita
3 goals
* Wisdom Ubani
2 goals
* Ismaïla Seidou
* Momo Fanyé
* Tawfik Bentayeb
* Ibraheem Jabaar
* Edmund Godfrey
1 goal
* David
* Mimo
* Zito
* Stève Mvoué
* Léonel Wamba
* Algassime Bah
* Akinkunmi Amoo
* Olatomi Olaniyan
* Olakunle Olusegun
* Aliou Baldé
* Samba Diallo
* Morice Abraham
* Agiri Ngoda
* Omary Jumanne Omary
* Kelvin Pius
* Ivan Asaba
* John Alou
* Andrew Kawooya
* Najib Yiga

## Qualified teams for FIFA U-17 World Cup

The following four teams from CAF qualified for the 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup.
| Team | Qualified on | Previous appearances in FIFA U-17 World Cup |
| Cameroon | 18 April 2019 | 1 (2003) |
| Nigeria | 20 April 2019 | 11 (1985, 1987, 1989, 1993, 1995, 2001, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2015) |
| Angola | 20 April 2019 | 0 (debut) |
| Senegal | 17 May 2019 | 0 (debut) |
    $^1$ Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.

## Concerns and controversies

* Following Morocco's loss to Cameroon in the group stage, the Royal Moroccan Football Federation lodged a complaint with CAF over allegations that Cameroon had fielded over-age players and falsified documents. The case was dismissed due to insufficient evidence.
* Following Senegal's loss to Guinea in the group stage, the Senegalese Football Federation lodged a complaint with CAF over allegations that Guinea had fielded over-age players and falsified documents, and the Nigeria Football Federation lodged a complaint with CAF following Nigeria's loss to Guinea in the semi-finals about Aboubacar Conte and Ahmed Tidiane Keita. In 2017, Guinea had a team at the International Dream Cup in Japan: two of the players involved, Aboubacar Conte and Ahmed Tidiane Keita been registered with a date of birth that would make those players ineligible for the competition. After both complaints were upheld, Guinea was ejected from the competition, being replaced by Senegal for the 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup spot.

### Guinean Football Federation punishment

CAF imposed the following penalties on the Guinean Football Federation:
* Guinea's representative team were excluded from the 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup, and the team was also barred from entering the next two editions of the competition.
* The Guinean Football Federation was also fined $50,000 USD, with a further $50,000 USD fine (in addition to any other penalty) should a similar incident reoccur within the next four years.
* CAF ejected Guinea from the competition, with its results being deleted from the records, and requested the return of the runners-up medals: failure to do so would result in an additional fine of $20,000 USD.
* The two players with falsified documents, Aboubacar Conte and Tidiane Keita, and the Guinean Football Federation official who filed these falsified documents, were all banned from involvement in football for two years.