CAF confirms 2025 Africa Cup of Nations Qualifiers draw procedure

A total of 48 African teams will on Thursday 4th of July know their group-stage opponents for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations scheduled for Morocco. The 2025 AFCON Qualifier Draws will be done in Johannesburg, South Africa.

All the 48 teams involved in the official draw are seeded using their current FIFA Rankings released by the World Football governing body on June 20, 2024. On Wednesday, Confédération Africaine de Football (CAF) officially released the procedures for draws for the qualifiers for the next iteration of the continent’s biggest competition.

The competition in Morocco will be the 35th edition even after there has been a change in the timing of the final tournament from mid-2025 to December, running until January 2026. 

The draws will start at 14h30 Local Time (12h30 GMT) in South Africa, with all teams sorted into four pots of 12, with the highest-ranked teams in the latest FIFA Rankings placed in Pots 1 to 4 till the 48 teams are placed.

When the draws are done, the qualifiers group will have 12 groups of four teams, each labeled Group A to L. When the qualifiers are done, the top two teams who finish in first and second in the eleven groups where the hosts (Morocco) are not in will all qualify for the competition.

The qualifying group involving Morocco, which is the host, will see just one other team aside from the hosts qualifying. CAF stated that in the scenario where the host is ranked first, the host is qualified in addition to being second in the group.

Irrespective of where Morocco finishes in the group, the team that ranks highest will qualify alongside the North Africans.

Pot one involves African powerhouses and defending champions Ivory Coast, host nations Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Tunisia, Algeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Mali, DR Congo and Egypt.