The upcoming Africa Cup of Nations finals, scheduled for 2025, will now start in 2026, six months later than originally anticipated, according to a statement released by the Conference of African Football (CAF) on Wednesday.
The 2025 AFCON finals in Morocco, which were supposed to take place in June of next year, will clash with the 32-team FIFA Club World Cup, which will be held in the United States from June 15–July 13.
Africa will field four clubs in the Club World Cup, and many of those players will likely be selected for the national teams competing in the AFCONs.
CAF was questioned about the apparent conflict multiple times before General Secretary Veron Mosengo-Omba informed the BBC that the Nations Cup finals would take place in early 2026, but the organization could not explain.
This will be devastating for Morocco, which was expecting to use a summer competition to showcase its growing tourism sector and demonstrate its capacity to organize a major event in advance of its co-hosting of the 2030 FIFA World Cup with Portugal and Spain.
“We can play after the Club World Cup, but is this good for the interests of the players who have played all the season and then travel to America to play (and then) immediately come to play Afcon?,” Mosengo-Omba said.
“Scheduling is a nightmare for everybody,” Mosengo-Omba told the BBC.
Criticism has also been leveled at CAF’s inability to determine the dates of this year’s women’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals, which are scheduled for Morocco. The African Football Competition, which debuted last year and is the newest super competition on the continent, is likewise mysterious.
In a knockout competition compressed into two months, eight chosen clubs competed for prize money that broke records.
CAF announced on Tuesday that the group stages of the Confederation Cup and the African Football League will take place in October and December of the following year, despite Patrice Motsepe, the organization’s president, having previously stated that the next iteration would include 24 teams.
