THE draw for the preliminary round of the qualifying competition for the AFCON 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco will be held tomorrow in Cairo, Egypt, according to the Confederation of African Football.
The draw marks the beginning of preparations of the next edition of Africa’s prime football competition, just over a week after hosts Cote d’Ivoire won the last edition by beating the Super Eagles of Nigeria 2-1 in the final in Abijdan.
The draw is scheduled to be conducted from 2pm in Egypt (1pm Nigerian time).
According to CAF, the preliminary round of the AFCON 2025 qualifiers will include the eight lowest-ranked teams by FIFA ranking.
The teams are Somalia, Djibouti, Sao Tome, Chad, Mauritius, South Sudan, Liberia and Eswatini, who will be drawn to face each other on a knockout basis.
The matches will be played on home-and-away basis during the FIFA window of March 18 to March 26, with the four preliminary round winners joining the 44 exempted teams for the group stage of the qualifiers.
The 48 teams will later be drawn into 12 groups of four each, with the top two from each group advancing to the tournament in Morocco.
The North African country last hosted AFCON in 1988 when Nigeria lost controversially to Cameroon in the final.
