The Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) is the tournament that all African nations dream of playing. In this article, we'll delve into the preparations for the AFCON 2025 qualifiers, highlighting the teams involved, trying to anticipate the qualifying draw date, and detailing the qualifying format .
AFCON 2025 qualifiers: The 48 competitors
After the preliminary qualifying rounds, there are a total of 48 teams that'll compete for 24 AFCON 2025 spots. The top 44 African nations in the FIFA rankings (February 2024) will be joined by four sides from the preliminary qualifying rounds. Here's a full list of participating countries:
- Algeria
- Angola
- Benin
- Botswana
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Cape Verde
- Comoros
- Congo
- DR Congo
- Ivory Coast
- Egypt
- Eswatini (qualified via preliminary round)
- Ethiopia
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Equatorial Guinea
- Kenya
- Lesotho
- Liberia (qualified via preliminary round)
- Libya
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Mali
- Morocco
- Mauritania
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Uganda
- Central African Republic
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- Sudan
- South Sudan (qualified via preliminary round)
- Tanzania
- Chad (qualified via the preliminary round)
- Togo
- Tunisia
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
AFCON 2025 qualifiers: When is the draw?
The precise date of the draw for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers has not yet been announced by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). However, based on the schedule of the previous edition, where the draw took place on April 19, 2022, it is reasonable to expect that the announcement for this edition will be made in the coming weeks.
In the last draw, the 48 teams were divided into four pots of 12, organized according to their FIFA ranking. The same procedure should be followed this year in order to draw groups of 4 teams, each from a different pot.
AFCON 2025 qualifying format
The qualifying format for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations follows a structure designed to ensure that the continent's best teams qualify for this 35th edition of the tournament which will take place in Morocco with the dates yet to be determined.
The qualifications are organized around 12 groups, each composed of 4 teams. At the end of this group stage, the first two teams in each group, a total of 24 teams, will qualify for the final phase of AFCON 2025.
