2025 Africa Cup of Nations

2025 Africa Cup of Nations
The 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (also referred to as AFCON 2025 or CAN 2025), known as the TotalEnergies 2025 Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons, is scheduled to be the 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the biennial international men's football championship of Africa organised by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). The tournament will be hosted by Morocco for the second time, and the first time since 1988 (Morocco was originally scheduled to host the 2015 edition, but the tournament was moved after the country's Ebola virus outbreak).
This edition of the tournament is scheduled to be the second after 2019 to take place during the northern hemisphere's summer (June–July), in order to reduce scheduling conflicts with European club teams and competitions; the previous 2023 edition was moved to January and February 2024 owing to the adverse summer weather conditions in Ivory Coast.
Guinea was set to be the original host of the tournament, but had its hosting rights stripped after affirming its inadequacy of hosting preparations. After a second bidding process, Morocco was named as host on 27 September 2023.
Host selection
Host shift
CAF stripped Cameroon from hosting the 2019 tournament on 30 November 2018 due the lack of speed of progress in preparations, 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, planned to host in 2025. The CAF President confirmed the timetable shift after a meeting with Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara in Abidjan, Ivory Coast on 30 January 2019.
New host bidding
On 30 September 2022, 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. Consequently, a new process was re-opened for a replacement host bidder. The host appointment for the 2025 and 2027 editions was initially supposed to be made on 15 August 2023, but could not be determined prior to the date in question.
Bids:
Morocco
Withdrawn bids:
Algeria
Nigeria and Benin
Zambia
Bidding process timeline:
11 November 2022: Deadline for submitting declaration of interest form
16 November 2022: Deadline for CAF to send hosting documents to member associations that declared interest
16 December 2022: Deadline for member associations to submit final bid, including all bidding and hosting documents (hosting agreement, host cities agreement, government guarantees)
20 March–2 April 2023: Inspection visits
27 September 2023: Appointment of host country/countries by CAF executive committee
Qualification
Qualified teams
The following teams have qualified for the tournament.
Venues
On 27 September 2023, the Royal Moroccan Football Federation unveiled a list of six stadiums in six cities to host the competition.
Group stage
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 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 are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 74):
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 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;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Drawing of lots.
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F
Ranking of third-placed teams
Combinations of matches in the round of 16
The specific match-ups involving the third-placed teams depend on which four third-placed teams qualify for the round of 16:
Knockout stage
Bracket
Round of 16
Quarter-finals
Semi-finals
Third place play-off
Final
References
External links
AFCON official website
2025
Nations
International association football competitions hosted by Morocco
football
Scheduled association football competitions