Dakar, September 26 (APS) – Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will jointly host the next edition of the African Nations Football Championship (CHAN), scheduled from February 1 to 28, 2025, announced the African Confederation of football (CAF), in a press release made public Thursday.
Last week, during the meeting of its executive committee in Nairobi, Kenya, CAF announced the dates selected for the organization of CHAN.
The governing body of African football had specified that this eighth edition would be held in an East African country.
Information regarding stadiums and training sites will be communicated in due course, she stressed in her press release.
The first round of qualifying will take place between October 25 and 27, 2024, with the return leg scheduled for November 1 to 3, 2024. The second round will take place from December 20 to 22 and December 27 to 29, 2024.
For this edition, nineteen nations will take part in this competition instead of the sixteen countries which usually participated.
Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are automatically qualified for CHAN.
Each of the five zones of the continent will be represented by three teams, namely the Union of West African Football Federations Zone A (UFOA-A), the UFOA-B, the North African Football Union, the Union of Central African Football Federations and the Council of Football Associations in Southern Africa.
The Council of East and Central African Football Associations (CECAFA) zone, “including the three organizing countries, will benefit from an additional place due to its automatic qualification as a host zone”.
The host countries “will take part in the qualifiers and will be joined in the final tournament by the team that obtains the best result in the CECAFA zone qualifiers”.
The Algerian Football Federation announced that Algeria would not take part in this edition of CHAN to “redirect efforts and resources towards young categories, male and female”, according to Algeria Press Service (APS), the official agency Algerian.
Senegal is the winner of the seventh and final edition of CHAN, which took place in Algeria (January 13-February 4, 2023).
Morocco and the Democratic Republic of Congo, with two trophies, are the most successful nations in this competition.
The African Nations Championship is organized every two years alternating with the CAN.
From now on, countries will be able to call on players playing on the African continent whereas previously, only footballers playing in a club in their country were admitted.
SK/ASG/BK
