Winter is coming… The Confederation of African Football has announced the postponement of the 35th edition of the African Cup of Nations. The competition will take place in Morocco in winter, from December 21, 2025 to January 18, 2026, CAF announced in its press release.
End of suspense. The African Cup of Nations will not take place in the summer. The competition will be played in the northern hemisphere, in Morocco, from December 21, 2025 to January 18, 2026. This will be the third consecutive edition to be postponed, after the CAN 2021 in Cameroon postponed to January-February 2022 due to COVID, and the CAN 2023 in Côte d’Ivoire contested between January and February 2024 due to weather conditions in the country. host.
An unprecedented choice This 35th edition, second in Morocco after that of 1988, will be the first CAN to take place over two calendar years. A unique choice. Usually contested in the summer period, the continental competition has often been postponed from early January until February, due to bad weather in sub-Saharan Africa and the southern hemisphere. A gap that poses a problem Announced prematurely for the summer of 2025 by the organizing country, this edition saw the authorities maintain a certain vagueness regarding its calendar. From now on, there will be no risk of overlap with the 32-team Club World Cup, scheduled by Fifa from June 15 to July 13, 2025 in the United States. “The announcement of the dates of the CAN […] 2025 took much longer than expected, because there were complex and sometimes difficult discussions with various interested parties, given the calendars of international and national matches”, clarified on this subject the president of CAF, Patrice Motsepe. If this programming should allow players playing in Europe, and competing with their clubs in the UEFA Champions League to be available, it nevertheless poses a problem. These dates would collide with those of Boxing Day in the Premier League. Clubs would be forced to release their players. Furthermore, a continental competition will be well organized in Morocco during the summer of 2025. In fact, CAF has announced the postponement of the women’s CAN scheduled for 2024. It will be played in the kingdom from July 5 to July 26, 2025. The arrangement of calendars has clearly become the favorite activity of the African Football Confederation.
