The 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign is in the books, with all 24 qualifiers for next year’s biennial competition now confirmed.

Here, ESPN presents the definitive summary of all things AFCON qualifying; the table, standings, rules, schedule and everything else in between.

Click here for matches, points and positions.

Qualified: Morocco (hosts), Burkina Faso, Egypt, Algeria, Angola, DR Congo, Cameroon, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Tunisia, Comoros, Gabon, Nigeria, Zambia, Mali, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Uganda, Botswana, Benin, Sudan, Tanzania , Mozambique

Eliminated: Lesotho, Liberia, Eswatini, Namibia, Burundi, South Sudan, Malawi, Gambia, Madagascar, Central African Republic, Cape Verde, Togo, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Congo-Brazzaville, Mauritania, Rwanda, Libya, Niger, Guinea , Guinea-Bissau

What is the Africa Cup of Nations?

The Africa Cup of Nations is the biennial football competition between the best African national sides to crown the continental champion.

It is Africa’s equivalent of the UEFA Euro, CONCACAF Gold Cup or Copa América to celebrate South America’s finest, and has been running since the first edition in 1957.

Commonly known as AFCON – short for “Africa Cup of Nations” – the tournament is also known as “CAN” or Coupe d’Afrique des Nations in French-speaking territories within and outside Africa.

Initially with only three participants, AFCON has expanded to include 24 teams in the finals – just over 44 percent of all eligible African confederations.

When is the next AFCON?

The next Africa Cup of Nations will take place between 21 December 2025 and 18 January 2026, with Morocco hosting the six-city tournament.

The unorthodox schedule is a direct consequence of FIFA’s expansion of the Club World Cup competition, which will now take place in June and July 2025, and clashes with the original AFCON dates.

The expanded UEFA Champions League, which started this season, also expands this competition’s footprint, leaving the AFCON sandwiched over Christmas and New Year.

Morocco assumed the mantle of host nation in September 2023 after Guinea was stripped of its hosting rights due to inadequate infrastructure and facilities.

AFCON qualification: How does it work?

Over the years, the Confederation of African Football has played around with different formats for AFCON qualification, taking into account the changing number of nations participating in the campaign and the occasional expansions of the tournament itself.

For 2025, the format was as follows: the eight lowest-ranked participants (according to the February 2024 FIFA world rankings) competed in the preliminary round in March, with four teams going through after home and away play-offs.

The four successful minnows then advanced to the 48-team group stage, where they were joined by 43 qualifying hopefuls, plus hosts Morocco to be drawn into 12 groups of four in a draw ceremony in Johannesburg in July.

Each group followed a traditional round-robin format, with each team playing each other home and away between 2 September and 19 November, when the qualifying campaign ended.

The top two teams from each group progressed to the tournament proper, with the exception of Group B, where Gabon are the only side to advance along with qualified hosts Morocco.

What happened if the teams were tied?

For this qualifying campaign, CAF opted for a head-to-head system to decide teams with the same number of points, rather than sorting by goal difference.

This means that if two teams had finished the group stage on points, it would have been the results of the matches between the pair that had been taken into account when deciding who finished higher.

The head to head came into play in Group B, with Benin and Rwanda finishing level on eight points, and despite each winning one of their matches against the other, the former advanced on head-to-head goal difference after a 3-0 -victory in Abidjan in October.

The outstanding results

Ghana 0-1 Angola (match week 1): A match that ultimately set the tone for both teams’ campaigns, as the Black Stars were frustrated in Kumasi before Felicio Milson scored a winner in the 93rd minute. Ghana found themselves in a downward spiral from which they could not quite recover, while Angola, after winning the toughest match of the campaign, went on to win the group by 14 points.

Tunisia 0-1 Comoros (game week 3): Both teams would go on to qualify for the tournament, but this was one of the shocks of the campaign, with Tunisia usually an ominous and terrifying prospect in Tunis. But this Comoros side has improved dramatically in recent years – they reached the last 16 of the 2021 AFCON – and have Rafiki Said to thank for a second-half winner that secured one of their most famous triumphs. The Comoros finish the qualifying campaign unbeaten – previously hard to imagine from the small islanders – and have lost just one full international in the whole of 2024.

Sudan 2-0 Ghana (match week 4): That’s when things really started to look bleak for the Black Stars. After being held 0-0 at home by Sudan in their previous game, they suffered a heavy blow in Benghazi as two goals within three second half minutes secured maximum points for the Falcons of Jediane and former Black Stars head coach Kwesi Appiah. That left Sudan needing just one more point to progress, while Ghana needed to win both of their outstanding matches to advance.

Libya 0-3 Nigeria (game week 4): If you don’t remember Nigeria winning 3-0 away in Libya, that’s because this match never took place, with the Super Eagles awarded a walkover by CAF’s disciplinary committee after the North Africans were deemed to have deliberately breached competition guidelines. After complaining of poor treatment during the pair’s first match in Nigeria, Libya reportedly arranged for the Eagles plane to be diverted to another city ahead of the return leg, before Augustine Eguavoen’s side were held at Al Abraq Airport without supplies for over 12 hours. Nigeria eventually boycotted the match and flew home to end a miserable low point in the qualifying programme.

Angola 1-1 Ghana (match week 5): The result that ultimately dumped the Black Stars out of AFCON contention, with the four-time champions missing out for only the second time since 1990. Despite taking the lead through Jordan Ayewwhich gave hope of a remarkable turnaround, they could not recover from Zinis 64th minute equalizer and was sentenced to elimination before matchweek six.

Morocco 7-0 Lesotho (match week 6): Morocco did not need to be competitive during the qualifying campaign, with their place in next year’s tournament on home soil already secured. However, they did not concede in their six qualifying matches and scored 26 goals across the campaign (an average of 4.3 per game), ten more than the next highest scorers (Algeria and South Africa). The 7-0 demolition of poor Lesotho was the highlight, with Brahim Diaz a fine hat-trick during a magnificent individual display. Over the course of the qualifying campaign, Diaz alone made more than 26 tackles.

Egypt 1-1 Botswana (matchweek 6): This was the result that took Botswana to the Nations Cup – just the second in their history – despite the minnows being ranked as low as 140th in the world in the FIFA rankings. However, they have earned their place on merit, not least by holding one Mohamed Salah-less Egypt in check to secure the point they needed to advance. Admittedly, they hung on for dear life after life Trézéguets 14th minute equaliser, with the hosts enjoying 82 per cent of possession and 30 shots to Botswana’s four. Nonetheless, a combination of the Pharaohs’ sloppiness and Goitseone Phoko’s heroics in goal saw Egypt drop their first points at home since pre-COVID, while the Zebras return to the top table for the first time since 2012.