The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has dismissed circulating reports on the social media pointing to a possible postponement of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations scheduled to hold in Morocco.
According to the continental football governing body on its x-handle, the executive committee will meet to deliberate and make decision on the official dates.
The speculation on possible postponement may have arisen owing to FIFA holding an expanded Club World Cup in the summer of 2025 thus making June/July inappropriate for the AFCON as some of the star players would also be engaged by their various clubs.
The Africa Cup of Nations had suffered several setbacks since the calendar was shifted from the even-ending year to the odd year.
The first of such edition was 2013 which was to hold in Libya. But owing to the civil disorder in that country, CAF opted to swap the venues by taking it to South Africa while the 2015, initially for South Africa was to hold in Libya.
By that time, the civil disorder in Libya had escalated into full-blown war and CAF had to award the hosting to Morocco. It could not also hold there owing to outbreak of ebola virus in Guinea which also qualified for the final competition. It was eventually held in Equatorial Guinea.
The 2017 edition was to return to Libya, but the war was still on and the competition was taken to Gabon.
The 2019 was to be in Cameroon, but the facilities were not in place and the tournament moved to Egypt where a new time-table of July-August was established. The 2021 originally meant for Cote d’Ivoire had to be moved to Cameroon which eventually hosted in January 2022 instead of June/July initial timetable of 2021.
The 2023 edition moved to January 2024 in Cote d’Ivoire.
