2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualification

2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualification

Tournament details
Dates	20 March – 19 November 2024
Teams	52 (from 1 confederation)
Tournament statistics
Matches played	56
Goals scored	121 (2.16 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Jean-Philippe Krasso (3 goals)
← 2023 2027 → All statistics correct as of 10 September 2024.

The 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualification matches are organised by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to decide the participating teams of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco, the 35th edition of the international men's football championship of Africa. The qualification began with the preliminary round which ran from 21 to 26 March and will conclude with the group stage, which will be played in September, October and November, all in 2024. A total of 24 teams will qualify to play in the final tournament, including automatically-qualified hosts Morocco.

All CAF member associations entered the competition, except Eritrea and Seychelles, who were excluded from the qualifiers. The seeding was based on the FIFA World Ranking from 15 February 2024, with teams ranked 1st to 44th received a bye to the qualifying group stage, while the teams ranked 45th to 52nd had to participate in the preliminary round.^[1]

The preliminary round draw was held on 20 February 2024, 14:00 CAT (UTC+2) at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.^[2]

The schedule of the qualifying tournament is as follows.^[4]

The eight teams were split into four ties which were played in home-and-away two-legged format.^[2]

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Somalia	2–5	Eswatini	0–3	2–2
São Tomé and Príncipe	1–1 (a)	South Sudan	1–1	0–0
Chad	3–1	Mauritius	1–0	2–1
Djibouti	0–2	Liberia	0–2	0–0

The group stage draw took place on 4 July 2024 at 2:30 pm (UTC+2) in Johannesburg, South Africa. The 48 national teams involved were divided into twelve groups of four each, which consisted of the 44 teams that entered directly, in addition to the four winners of the preliminary round, and were seeded into four pots of twelve each based on the June 2024 FIFA World Rankings (shown in parentheses).^[5][6]

The teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers are applied in the following order (Regulations Article 14):

1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
4. Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
5. If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above will be reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
6. Goal difference in all group matches;
7. Goals scored in all group matches;
8. Away goals scored in all group matches;
9. Drawing of lots

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Tunisia	2	2	0	0	3	1	+2	6	Final tournament		—	6 Oct	18 Nov	1–0
2	Comoros	2	0	2	0	2	2	0	2			14 Oct	—	1–1	18 Nov
3	Gambia	2	0	1	1	2	3	−1	1			1–2	10 Nov	—	14 Oct
4	Madagascar	2	0	1	1	1	2	−1	1			10 Nov	1–1	6 Oct	—

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Morocco[a] (Q)	2	2	0	0	5	1	+4	6	Final tournament		—	6 Oct	4–1	18 Nov
2	Central African Republic	2	1	0	1	3	3	0	3			14 Oct	—	18 Nov	3–1
3	Gabon	2	1	0	1	3	4	−1	3			10 Nov	2–0	—	6 Oct
4	Lesotho	2	0	0	2	1	4	−3	0			0–1	10 Nov	14 Oct	—

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Egypt	2	2	0	0	7	0	+7	6	Final tournament		—	3–0	6 Oct	18 Nov
2	Cape Verde	2	1	0	1	2	3	−1	3			10 Nov	—	2–0	6 Oct
3	Mauritania	2	1	0	1	1	2	−1	3			14 Oct	18 Nov	—	1–0
4	Botswana	2	0	0	2	0	5	−5	0			0–4	14 Oct	10 Nov	—

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Nigeria	2	1	1	0	3	0	+3	4	Final tournament		—	3–0	18 Nov	6 Oct
2	Benin	2	1	0	1	2	4	−2	3			10 Nov	—	6 Oct	2–1
3	Rwanda	2	0	2	0	1	1	0	2			0–0	14 Oct	—	10 Nov
4	Libya	2	0	1	1	2	3	−1	1			14 Oct	18 Nov	1–1	—

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Algeria	2	2	0	0	5	0	+5	6	Final tournament		—	6 Oct	2–0	18 Nov
2	Togo	2	0	2	0	3	3	0	2			14 Oct	—	18 Nov	1–1
3	Equatorial Guinea	2	0	1	1	2	4	−2	1			10 Nov	2–2	—	6 Oct
4	Liberia	2	0	1	1	1	4	−3	1			10 Sep	10 Nov	14 Oct	—

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Angola	2	2	0	0	3	1	+2	6	Final tournament		—	2–1	10 Nov	6 Oct
2	Sudan	2	1	0	1	2	2	0	3			18 Nov	—	14 Oct	1–0
3	Ghana	2	0	1	1	1	2	−1	1[a]			0–1	6 Oct	—	18 Nov
4	Niger	2	0	1	1	1	2	−1	1[a]			14 Oct	10 Nov	1–1	—

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Ivory Coast	2	2	0	0	4	0	+4	6	Final tournament		—	2–0	6 Oct	18 Nov
2	Zambia	2	1	0	1	3	4	−1	3			10 Nov	—	3–2	6 Oct
3	Sierra Leone	2	0	1	1	2	3	−1	1			14 Oct	18 Nov	—	0–0
4	Chad	2	0	1	1	0	2	−2	1			0–2	14 Oct	10 Nov	—

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	DR Congo	2	2	0	0	3	0	+3	6	Final tournament		—	6 Oct	18 Nov	1–0
2	Tanzania	2	1	1	0	2	1	+1	4			14 Oct	—	0–0	18 Nov
3	Ethiopia	2	0	1	1	0	2	−2	1			0–2	10 Nov	—	14 Oct
4	Guinea	2	0	0	2	1	3	−2	0			10 Nov	1–2	6 Oct	—

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Mozambique	2	1	1	0	3	2	+1	4[a]	Final tournament		—	10 Nov	2–1	6 Oct
2	Mali	2	1	1	0	2	1	+1	4[a]			1–1	—	6 Oct	18 Nov
3	Guinea-Bissau	2	1	0	1	2	2	0	3			18 Nov	14 Oct	—	1–0
4	Eswatini	2	0	0	2	0	2	−2	0			14 Oct	0–1	10 Nov	—

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Kenya	2	1	1	0	2	1	+1	4	Final tournament		—	14 Oct	0–0	18 Nov
2	Cameroon	2	1	1	0	1	0	+1	4			6 Oct	—	18 Nov	1–0
3	Zimbabwe	2	0	2	0	0	0	0	2			10 Nov	0–0	—	14 Oct
4	Namibia	2	0	0	2	1	3	−2	0			1–2	10 Nov	6 Oct	—

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Uganda	2	1	1	0	4	2	+2	4[a]	Final tournament		—	10 Nov	2–0	6 Oct
2	South Africa	2	1	1	0	5	4	+1	4[a]			2–2	—	6 Oct	18 Nov
3	Congo	2	1	0	1	1	2	−1	3			18 Nov	14 Oct	—	1–0
4	South Sudan	2	0	0	2	2	4	−2	0			14 Oct	2–3	10 Nov	—

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Burkina Faso	2	1	1	0	4	2	+2	4[a]	Final tournament		—	10 Nov	6 Oct	3–1
2	Senegal	2	1	1	0	2	1	+1	4[a]			1–1	—	18 Nov	6 Oct
3	Burundi	2	1	0	1	3	3	0	3			14 Oct	0–1	—	10 Nov
4	Malawi	2	0	0	2	3	6	−3	0			18 Nov	14 Oct	2–3	—

There have been 121 goals scored in 56 matches, for an average of 2.16 goals per match (as of 10 September 2024). Players highlighted in bold are still active in the competition.

3 goals

2 goals

1 goal

1 own goal

The following teams have qualified for the final tournament.

Team	Qualified as	Qualified on	Previous appearances in Africa Cup of Nations1
Morocco	Hosts	27 September 2023	19 (1972, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1986, 1988, 1992, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023)

¹ Bold indicates champions for that year. Italics indicates hosts for that year.