After a shock announcement 10 months ago that the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) would be held every four years, the governing body of football on the continent has reversed course. The Confederation of African Football (Caf) will instead retain the tournament's traditional biennial staging, with its president Patrice Motsepe saying the U-turn was based on "advancing, protecting and promoting" the interests of the African game. The first indication that the frequency of Afcon was being reconsidered came at Caf's strategy conference in Cape Verde earlier this month.
Questions are now being asked about the decision-making process and what this means for the future of African football. Afcon has predominantly been held every two years since its first edition in 1957, barring two three-year gaps in the 1960s and one year between the 2012 and 2013 tournaments. On the eve of the 2025 finals in Morocco, Motsepe announced all that would change from 2028.
The South African said the shift to a four-year cycle was, in part, to help the global calendar "be significantly more synchronised and harmonised". In recent years Afcon has been staged midway through the European club season, leading to recurring disputes over the release of African players. Fifa general secretary Mattias Grafstrom was sitting aside Motsepe when the plan was announced, and critics highlighted that the scheduling change favoured football's world governing body more than the African game.
"I think the general sentiment around the continent has been that the two-year cycle has served the continent very well," Football Association of Zambia (Faz) official Sydney Mungala told the BBC. "The idea of pushing it to a four-year cycle was a bit of a surprise, maybe a concern, to the bulk of the African federations." Afcon to return to two-year cycle after Caf U-turn Afcon to be held every four years from 2028 Afcon has developed into Caf's biggest revenue generator, with a profit of $114m (£85m) forecast for Afcon 2025, up from $75m (£56m) for the previous finals in Ivory Coast. In its stead, an annual Africa Nations League involving all 54 countries on the continent was proposed.
Motsepe described the ambition as creating a "world-class competition every year". The idea was to move beyond Caf's heavy reliance on Afcon and develop a more sustainable commercial model which could support football development. Yet the last time an ambitious alternative competition took place in Africa, it failed to deliver on its financial promise and was quickly ditched.
The Africa Super League, announced by Caf in 2022 to revolutionise continental club competition, and with projected annual revenues of $200m (£149m), was discontinued after just one edition. Motsepe later acknowledged that commercial deals fell short of expectations. "We didn't proceed as quickly because the partners that were giving us money were not giving us the deals we thought we would be happy with," he said.
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