AFCON 2025: Eagles, others know preliminary opponents as CAF holds draw Tuesday
The Confederation of African Football (CAF), will carry out the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) preliminary round draw on Tuesday, February 20.
According to a statement on CAF’s website, the preliminary round draw will take place at 2 p.m. local time on Tuesday at its headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.
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How the draw is expected to be done according to CAF:
For ease of executing the preliminary round draw and the actual qualification process, the football governing body in Africa has announced that only the eight lowest-ranked teams in the last FIFA ranking will participate in the preliminary round.
Based on the most recent FIFA ranking, the lowest-ranked teams in Africa are; Somalia, Djibouti, Sao Tome, Chad, Mauritius, South Sudan, Liberia, and Eswatini.
CAF announced that the preliminary round will take place on a home-and-away basis from March 18 to March 26, 2024.
Only four teams from the preliminary round are expected to join the remaining 44 African teams for the 2025 AFCON qualification round group stage.
The group stage is expected to produce 24 teams for the 2025 AFCON, which Morocco will host at a yet-to-be-decided date in 2025.
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Note that the hosts participating in the qualification series, are automatically qualified to participate in the tournament.
As mentioned earlier, the commencement date for the 2025 AFCON has not been confirmed yet. The stockholders of the tournament are still looking for ways to prevent it from crashing with the FIFA Club World Cup in the summer of 2025. They are also trying to prevent it from taking place in the same year as the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Super Eagles who are chasing their 4th AFCON title after previously winning in 1980, 1994 and 2013 came close but failed to realise the dream in Cote d Ivoire, but will now be hoping to qualify for the next edition in Morocco to give the dream another shot.