Initially scheduled for summer 2025, the African Cup of Nations (CAN) could be moved to winter 2026. This possibility was raised by the secretary general of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), Veron Mosengo-Omba, in due to the first edition of the Club World Cup, scheduled from June 15 to July 13, 2025 in the United States. However, CAF quickly denied this idea of postponement via a press release published on X.
The press release specifies that the announcements concerning a possible postponement of the CAN 2025 are false and that the CAF Executive Committee will meet to deliberate and make a decision on the dates of the CAN 2025, before publishing an official statement on the subject.
Earlier this Wednesday, L’Équipe reported the words of Mosengo-Omba, who was considering the possibility of playing the CAN after the Club World Cup. He, however, raised the question of whether it would be in the interest of the players, who would have played the entire season, to go to America and return immediately to participate in the CAN afterwards.
This information quickly circulated in the media and on social networks, also taken up by international press agencies.
As a reminder, Morocco was designated as host of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations by the CAF executive committee following a meeting held on Wednesday September 27, 2023 in Cairo.
The qualifying draw for CAN 2025 has not yet been made. The remaining 48 teams will enter the competition after the March 2024 play-offs, which saw Chad, Liberia, South Sudan and Eswatini qualify for this phase.
