CAF faces scheduling nightmare for 2025 AFCON, AWCON dates

The Confederation of African Football, CAF, is in dilemma over the scheduling of its premier international competitions – the Africa Cup of Nations for men  [AFCON] and the Africa Women’s Cup of Nations [AWCON] respectively.

The Secretary General of CAF, Veron Mosengo-Omba, admitted that the continent’s football governing body has penciled down unconfirmed dates for both tournaments but assured that a definite announcement will be made by the end of June.

Speaking first on the 2024 Women’s Cup of Nations to be hosted by Morocco, Mosengo-Omba noted that it could be moved to 2025 with nine-time African champions, Nigeria one of the reasons why the decision to move the AWCON back by one year has to be taken.

“We are supposed to play this year but we have teams engaged in the Olympics, so we have to find another date,” Mosengo-Omba told BBC Sport Africa.

“We are talking with UEFA because most of the players are playing in Europe, the European Club Association and also with FIFA in order to find [a] suitable date.”

CAF’s statutes say both iterations of the Nations Cup should be held once every two years – rather than once every four as is the case with most major championships organized by other confederations.

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The qualification campaign for the 2024 AWCON was concluded in December 2023 with Nigeria’s Super Falcons and the Shipolopolo of Zambia booking their tickets to the women’s football tournament of the Paris 2024 Olympics to hold between July and August.

For the men’s AFCON, the reversed edition of the FIFA Club World Cup is expected to be held in the summer of 2025 when the continent’s showpiece in Morocco ought to take place.

To this end, the competition which had to be played in even years on such occasions rather than the designated odd years could be moved to January 2026.