July 21 – African football chiefs have rubber-stamped the biggest ever overhaul to the Continent’s showpiece competition by agreeing to switch the African Nations Cup from its traditional January date to June and expand the finals to 24 teams – starting with the next edition in 2019 in Cameroon.
The changes, unveiled at a high-profile symposium in Morocco earlier this week, were adopted by the executive committee of the African Football Confederation (CAF) which also agreed to award the 2021 and 2023 Nations Cups to the Ivory Coast and Guinea respectively.
Major changes have also been introduced to Africa’s Champions League and Confederation Cup tournaments, which will now run from August to May, similar to the Champions League, rather than over the course of a calendar year.
Africa’s flagship football tournament has featured 16 teams since 1996 and the first ramification of AFCON’s expansion will be to put pressure on 2019 hosts Cameroon. CAF officials are due to inspect preparations in September, with Morocco on stand-by as a potential back-up host if needed.
Not everything will change, however. The competition will continue to be held every two years rather than switch to every four years as had been mooted, and only involve African countries. CAF had apparently been considering whether to allow countries from other continents to compete.
The expansion of AFCON was a key ambition of new CAF leader Ahmad Ahmad (pictured) but not all his members agree that it should start straight away. “It’s just a personal opinion but I do not think we’re ready to go from 16 to 24 right away,” said the president of the Ivorian Football Federation.
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