Founded in 1957, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has grown to a membership of 54 football associations.[1][2] It organises the continent's major national-team and club competitions.[3]
CAF was formed during the era of African independence and is regarded by historians as one of the continent's early pan-African institutions.[4][5] It is one of FIFA's six continental confederations and governs the game in Africa. Its founding purpose was to organise international tournaments and represent African interests in world football. The first African Nations Cup was held at CAF's launch in Khartoum in 1957, three years before the inaugural European equivalent. French, English, and Arabic were adopted as the confederation's official languages. The independence of sixteen African nations in 1960 enlarged both CAF and the Nations Cup.[6]
Formation (1954–1957)
The Confederation of African Football took shape at the 29th FIFA Congress in Bern, Switzerland, in June 1954. Four national associations represented Africa: Egypt, a FIFA member since 1923; Sudan, affiliated in 1948; Ethiopia in 1953; and South Africa, in 1910 and again in 1952.[5]
At that Congress, Africa was recognised as a zonal group with the right, for the first time, to a representative on the FIFA Executive Committee. Engineer Abdel Aziz Abdallah Salem of Egypt took up the seat.
The recognition faced European resistance. Argentina objected that African and Asian football was too weak to merit a seat, though the 1953 Paris Congress had already agreed Africa would be represented.[7] Goldblatt reads that opposition as racially motivated.[8] The four Home Nations and the eastern countries backed Africa. The vote carried 24 to 17, and the African associations won their place with support from the Soviet bloc and South American federations. The Congress elected Salem until a confederation could be founded, and the delegates agreed to meet again at the 1956 FIFA Congress in Lisbon.
The African delegation at the 1956 Lisbon Congress comprised Abdel Aziz Salem, Mohammad Latif and Youssef Mohammad (Egypt); Abdel Halim Mohamed, Abdel Rahim Shaddad and Badawi Mohammad Ali (Sudan); and Fred Fell (South Africa). Meeting on 7 and 8 June at the Avenida Hotel, they resolved to create an African football confederation and to hold a competition among African countries, beginning in Khartoum in 1957, where the new body's statutes would be drawn up.[9]
Foundation of the African Cup of Nations (1957)
The Constitutional Assembly took place on 8 February 1957 at the Grand Hotel in Khartoum, Sudan. Those present included Abdel Aziz Salem, Mourad Fahmy, Galal Koreitem, Moustafa Kamel Mansour and Youssef Mohammad (Egypt); Yidnekatchew Tessema, General Aman Andom and Guebeyehu Double (Ethiopia); Abdel Halim Mohamed, Abdel Rahim Shaddad, Badawi Mohammad Ali and Ahmad Mohammad Singawi (Sudan); and Fred Fell (South Africa). The statutes drew on proposals by both Tessema and Shaddad, and regulations were drafted for the African Cup of Nations. Salem was elected the first CAF president; Tessema, Abdel Halim and Fell joined the executive committee, with Youssef Mohamed as the first honorary general secretary. The first African Cup of Nations began on 10 February without South Africa; that exclusion is treated in the section on apartheid below.[9][6]
Ethiopia rejected a proposal that the three remaining teams play a round-robin group and insisted on a bye to the final.[10] At Khartoum Stadium, Egypt beat the host nation 2–1 on 10 February, then defeated Ethiopia 4–0 in the final on 15 February.[10] Mohammad Diab El Attar, known as "Ad-Diba", scored all four goals in the final and finished as top scorer with five. Only two matches were played, and Egypt became the first champions of Africa.[11]
Apartheid and the politics of membership (1957–1976)
The exclusion of white-ruled South Africa was the confederation's first defining act, and the campaign that followed ran across four presidencies and two decades. It is set out here as a single thread; the presidential sections below refer back to it where it shaped their events.
South Africa
Football reached South Africa with British soldiers and settlers in the late nineteenth century and spread through mission schools and the mines. From those beginnings until football's unification in 1991 the game was organised along racial lines, growing in parallel among Black, Coloured and Indian communities that seldom played one another.[6]
The dominant body, the all-white South African Football Association (SAFA), renamed itself the Football Association of Southern Africa (FASA) in March 1957 and removed the explicit racial clauses from its constitution while keeping its whites-only practice; it substituted South for Southern in the name in November 1962.[12][13] The non-racial South African Soccer Federation (SASF), formed in 1951, represented most of the country's players.[6] Segregation in the game predated apartheid, leagues having been divided by race before 1948, and the government introduced its first explicitly racial sports policy in 1956.[12]
A FIFA emergency committee found in May 1955 that SAFA "does not comprise and control all the clubs and players in South Africa", but a commission of inquiry the following year accepted its argument that racial separation in sport was a South African "tradition and custom".[12][13] CAF took a firmer line. South Africa did not compete at the first African Cup of Nations; CAF's account is that FASA was disqualified for refusing to field a racially mixed team, while Bolsmann, working from the association's own minutes, records that FASA withdrew.[a] CAF expelled FASA at its meeting before the 1960 FIFA Congress in Rome.[b][13][11] The stand came five years before the Organisation of African Unity, at a time when apartheid was tolerated by both the International Olympic Committee and FIFA.[4]
FIFA suspended the South African association in September 1961.[12] The suspension was lifted in January 1963 after FIFA president Sir Stanley Rous visited the country and reported that its federation was not responsible for government-imposed discrimination.[12] Under pressure from African and Asian associations, the 1964 Congress in Tokyo reimposed the suspension.[14] South Africa was formally expelled from FIFA in 1976, after the Soweto uprising, and readmitted only in 1992.[12] Darby records that Rous's "support for the all-white Football Association of South Africa in the lead up to and long after their suspension from FIFA in 1964" ran counter to CAF's pan-African outlook and showed "an inability to navigate the political realities of a volatile post-colonial world".[15]
A related confrontation concerned a scheme, encouraged by Sir Stanley Rous, to establish a separate FIFA-recognised confederation in Southern Africa consisting mainly of South Africa, Rhodesia, Mauritius, Madagascar, Botswana and Malawi. African officials regarded this as a route to the unchallenged readmission of apartheid South Africa.[citation needed] African leaders obtained copies of the confidential correspondence and warned Rous, before the 1966 Congress in London, that all African associations would leave the hall if FIFA did not withdraw its support for two separate confederations on one continent. Rous withdrew the proposal, and the walkout was avoided.[citation needed][c]
The confrontation ran alongside a dispute over World Cup qualification that came to a head in 1964. In January, FIFA allotted the sixteen-team finals ten places to Europe, four to Latin America and one to the Central American zone, leaving Africa, Asia and Oceania to contest a single berth reachable only through an intercontinental play-off. Darby describes the formalisation of that rule in 1964 as "the final provocation".[15] African associations withdrew from qualifying at the FIFA Congress in Tokyo in October 1964, the same meeting at which the African bloc secured the renewed suspension of South Africa. FIFA fined CAF 5,000 Swiss francs. North Korea, winners of the Asian qualifiers, took the contested place at the 1966 finals in England.[16][15] Tessema wrote that "FIFA has adopted a relentless attitude against the African Associations and its decisions resemble methods of intimidation and repression designed to discourage any further impulses."[15][5]
Rhodesia
Many African nations pressed for the exclusion of Rhodesia after its white-minority government issued a unilateral declaration of independence on 11 November 1965. The Rhodesian association had joined FIFA only months earlier and fielded a multi-racial side in the 1970 World Cup qualifiers, which complicated the case against it.[17] The campaign to remove Rhodesia reached the 1970 Congress in Mexico City, where African associations threatened to walk out if the case was not endorsed, and FIFA suspended Rhodesia that year.[17]
Salem and Moustafa presidencies (1957–1968)
The confederation began in near-poverty. It had no money and was initially indebted to a printing company.[citation needed] The EFA rented two rooms of its Nile-side office to CAF and settled the confederation's utility bills, while the Egyptian Olympic Committee granted CAF 2,000 pounds a year.[citation needed] The organisation also lost important early documents in a fire at the offices of the Sudan Football Association, where they were kept.[citation needed] The statutes adopted at the Constitutional Assembly had already been sent to FIFA, which approved them on 21 June 1957 in Zürich. Under Article 5, which placed the headquarters in the president's country of residence, CAF's first office was at 3 El Hadiqa Street, Garden City, Cairo.[9][18]
The third General Assembly took place in June 1958 in Stockholm during the FIFA Congress and World Cup. Salem did not attend. According to Al-Masry Al-Youm, he was on his way to the airport when he received a message from Abdel Hakim Amer removing him from his post and appointing another representative in his place; the paper adds that Salem had bought the first Nations Cup trophy himself from a shop in Sheffield, and that memoirs he wrote of the founding in the 1960s were never published.[19] Abdel Aziz Moustafa replaced Salem as CAF president, Dr Abdel Halim Mohamed became the first African elected to the FIFA Executive Committee, and Moustafa Kamel Mansour succeeded Youssef Mohamed as general secretary.[1]
An extraordinary meeting in Rome on 21 August 1960 drew delegates from Ghana, Morocco and Tunisia. The next Congress, held in Cairo on 16 February 1961, re-elected Moustafa as president and appointed Mourad Fahmy as general secretary.[1][20] Each national association was to pay an annual affiliation fee of E£50.[citation needed] Fahmy held the post until 1982, when he was succeeded by his son Mustapha Fahmy, who served until 2010.[21] At the fourth Congress in Cairo in 1961, Tessema proposed moving the headquarters to Addis Ababa, partly as a first step toward a more even distribution of duties and benefits within CAF. New members Ghana and Tunisia declined to challenge the status quo, and the proposal failed.[citation needed]
At the CAF extraordinary assembly in Addis Ababa in January 1962, Moustafa was elected a FIFA vice-president and Ghana's Ohene Djan took the Executive Committee seat by four votes to three, both contests going against Tessema.[22] Djan and Tessema were confirmed as CAF vice-presidents at the January 1963 assembly, serving under Moustafa.[22]
A larger gathering met in Cairo on 23 and 24 January 1963, after the Egyptian government agreed to cover delegates' travel and accommodation. A record 23 national associations attended, alongside FIFA president Sir Stanley Rous. The continent was divided into six geographical zones, the Executive Committee was expanded to twelve members, and a new set of statutes was adopted.[1] At the General Assembly in Accra on 22 November 1963, CAF created a club competition, the African Cup of Champions Clubs.
The 1964 Congress in Tokyo combined governance and the apartheid fight in a single meeting. Alongside the renewed suspension of South Africa and the World Cup boycott described above, some 25 African countries were represented and Djan was re-elected to the FIFA Executive Committee.[14][6][22] At the seventh CAF General Assembly in Tunis on 11 November 1965, Mohammad Maouche, head of the Algerian delegation, criticised the organisation's structures, leading to a study committee tasked with amending the statutes for the Extraordinary Assembly in London in July 1966.[citation needed]
After the 1966 military coup d'état that overthrew Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's National Redemption Council barred Djan from public activity, ending his role at FIFA; Tessema replaced him on the Executive Committee.[22] New statutes adopted in July 1966 created six standing committees, the most important being the Organising Committee, chaired by Tessema.[citation needed]
Abdel Halim presidency (1968–1972)
The Eighth General Assembly, held in Addis Ababa on 10 January 1968, elected Dr Abdel Halim Mohamed of Sudan as president after Moustafa lost his seat and Dr Ahmad Bakr of Egypt withdrew.[23] Abdel Halim, a physician who was the first Sudanese to be admitted a Member and later a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, was simultaneously president of the Sudan Olympic Committee and later chancellor of the University of Khartoum; he joined the International Olympic Committee in 1968.[24][25]Rito Alcantara of Senegal became vice-president and was elected to the FIFA Executive Committee, subject to FIFA approval; Tessema was re-elected.[citation needed] CAF agreed to cooperate with the Supreme Council of Sports in Africa while retaining its independence.[1]
Two years later, members protested that Abdel Halim had made little progress on promised reforms. During the seventh Nations Cup in Sudan in 1970, twenty associations petitioned for a committee to review and amend the statutes. Tessema chaired it, with members from Algeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Togo, Senegal and Ghana.[citation needed]
The same period saw CAF press FIFA on financial equity. At the 1970 FIFA Congress in Mexico, Ethiopia proposed that FIFA levy a share of gate income from matches between the four British associations, which held four Congress votes and four World Cup places between them. The motion was defeated by 34 votes to 33. A similar motion, presented by Uruguay at the 1972 Congress in Paris, was adopted.[citation needed]
Tessema presidency (1972–1987)
The Yaoundé assembly of 1972 turned on a restructuring that Tessema had led. FIFA president Rous attended, along with 28 national associations. A Senegalese proposal for an ad hoc committee to develop a technical programme and raise refereeing standards was approved, and the committee's revised statutes were adopted with the support of 22 associations. After extended sessions, the Congress adopted a new constitution, and for the first time the assembly asserted itself as the supreme authority of the confederation.[citation needed]
On that platform, Yidnekatchew Tessema was elected CAF president, defeating the incumbent Abdel Halim Mohamed. He held the office until his death in 1987.[23][5] Contemporary accounts give the margin as 15 votes to 12 and state that Rous, who supervised the election, favoured Abdel Halim.[citation needed] Professor Rene Essomba became first vice-president and Alcantara second vice-president; Egypt retained the headquarters and the African vice-presidency at FIFA, and Mourad Fahmy continued as general secretary.[1][citation needed]
In the following years, the admission of newly independent African countries strengthened CAF's position in FIFA congresses. It also sharpened divisions between Arabophone, Francophone and Anglophone Africa, which remained a recurring challenge to unity within African football.[6] Addressing the 1974 Nations Cup, Tessema rejected any division between "Francophone, Anglophone, and Arabophone" populations, telling delegates that "Africa is one and indivisible".[5]
Under Tessema the competition calendar grew. The African Cup Winners' Cup was founded in 1975. A youth competition followed in 1979, first staged as the Tessema Cup and doubling as Africa's qualifier for the new FIFA World Youth Championship; CAF expanded it into an eight-team finals tournament in 1991.[26] From 1985 CAF also ran a knockout qualifier for FIFA's under-17 world championship, contested at first in the under-16 age group, which it developed into a standalone African U-17 Championship in 1995.[26] As competitions multiplied, CAF's finances improved, and in 1982 it sold the television and publicity rights to the Nations Cup for the first time.[6]
Tessema sought to arrange his succession before his death. He asked member associations to support Omar Sey of the Gambia, then chairman of CAF's referees' committee, and FIFA president João Havelange wrote to Sey that "his wish is that when he is to leave CAF, you should become his successor." Sey was appointed the Gambia's foreign minister in May 1987 and declined to stand, later saying that he and his supporters "decided to let Issa Hayatou stand. He was one of my biggest supporters before 1988. So I supported him and he became president."[27][28][29]
Under Hayatou, CAF expanded its main competitions. The Africa Cup of Nations grew from eight finalists until 1990 to twelve in 1992 and sixteen from 1996.[30][1] In 1997, CAF restructured the African Cup of Champions Clubs into the CAF Champions League, adding a group stage and introducing prize money for the first time in African club football: US$1 million to the winners and US$750,000 to the runners-up, the richest purse in the African club game at the time.[31] The commercial push served a policy aim. Hayatou wanted to give clubs the means to keep players on the continent against the pull of European leagues, a flow he cast in colonial terms as rich countries importing the raw material, talent, and sending back their less able coaches.[32][33] A 1997 agreement with UEFA arranged fees for African-born players working in Europe.[33] The retention effort had little success. Darby (2002) records that CAF held limited power to regulate the trade, since intervention fell to the national federations rather than the confederation.[7] Later scholarship questioned the extraction premise itself, stressing the agency of African clubs and players in a market they helped shape.[33] In 2004, the CAF Confederation Cup replaced both the CAF Cup and the African Cup Winners' Cup as the second-tier club competition.[30]
CAF's finances grew markedly during this period as it professionalised and commercialised its competitions.[30] In October 2004, the mobile operator MTN signed a sponsorship covering the Africa Cup of Nations and the Champions League, its terms among the largest then seen in African sport.[34] CAF also directed more resources to technical development, though independent figures for the budget are scarce.[30] On 30 January 1997 in Lisbon, CAF and UEFA concluded the Meridian Project, a co-operation agreement that funded a biennial youth tournament between Africa and Europe and, every two years, direct UEFA assistance to two African associations chosen by the CAF Executive Committee.[35] A development programme, "Contract with Africa", framed CAF's work in coach education, refereeing, administration and sports medicine through its football development division.[36]
In October 2002, CAF moved to new headquarters in the southern suburbs of Cairo, near the Pyramids of Giza. From 2002, it funded one delegate from each member association to attend the General Assembly, which raised attendance.[1]
Africa's guaranteed representation at the FIFA World Cup rose from a single place through 1978 to two from 1982, three in 1994, and five from the 1998 tournament, the second-largest allocation after Europe.[30] Darby (2005) frames this gain as the culmination of a campaign for equitable representation dating to the 1960s, rather than a development of Hayatou's presidency alone.[30] During Hayatou's tenure South Africa hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the first held on the continent, and Hayatou chaired its organising committee.[37] African teams recorded notable results in the period: Cameroon and Senegal reached the quarter-finals of the 1990 and 2002 tournaments, and Nigeria and Cameroon won Olympic gold in 1996 and 2000.[30]
In November 2008, the Emergency Committee met in Douala, Cameroon, and endorsed the candidatures for the February 2009 elections in Lagos, Nigeria, at which Hayatou stood unopposed.[38]
Women's competitions
CAF organised its first continental competition for women in 1991, to select Africa's representative for the inaugural FIFA Women's World Cup. Contested home and away with no host nation, it was won by Nigeria, who beat Cameroon 2–0 and 4–0 in a two-legged final; three of the four other first-round ties were settled by walkover. A second home-and-away edition followed in 1995, again won by Nigeria.[39] From 1998 the competition was staged as a centralised finals tournament with a single host, beginning with eight teams in Nigeria.[39][40][d]
Qualifying series for the FIFA under-19, later under-20, women's world championships began in 2002, and for the under-17 tournament in 2008; neither has a continental finals stage.[41][42] CAF first presented an African Women's Footballer of the Year award in 2001, to Mercy Akide of Nigeria.[43]
Africa's allocation at the FIFA Women's World Cup rose from one place in 1991 and 1995 to two from 1999 and three from 2015.[44]Nigeria reached the quarter-finals of the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup, recovering from three goals down against Brazil before losing in extra time.[45]
On 6 August 2015, following an Executive Committee meeting, CAF renamed the women's tournament to match the men's competition. Its own account describes the decision as marking "official recognition of the competition's status", ending talk of "a 'little women's tournament'" and asserting that it was a major championship.[46]
Corruption allegations
In November 2010, a BBC Panorama investigation alleged that Hayatou had received a payment of 100,000 French francs from the marketing agency ISL in 1995, connected to the award of World Cup television rights. Hayatou denied personal wrongdoing, stating that the money had gone to CAF rather than to him.[47] In December 2011, the IOC Ethics Commission reprimanded him; its president likened the sanction to a caution, and the Commission noted it could not confirm the funds had reached CAF's accounts.[48] Hayatou's later years on the FIFA Executive Committee drew further corruption allegations that did not result in findings against him.[48]
50th anniversary
CAF marked its 50th anniversary in 2007 with events in the four founding countries: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and South Africa. The main launch took place on 10 February 2007 in Khartoum, alongside CAF's General Assembly, and was attended by FIFA president Sepp Blatter and Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir.[49] Hayatou used the occasion to credit the founders for CAF's later growth and to reaffirm that Africa was ready to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He also called on member associations to strengthen their national leagues in order to retain players on the continent.[49] The date recalled CAF's founding in Khartoum on 8 February 1957, with the first Africa Cup of Nations match played there two days later.[49]
Togo ban controversy
CAF drew criticism after it banned Togo from the next two editions of the Africa Cup of Nations. Togo had withdrawn from the 2010 tournament, then tried to rejoin, after an armed ambush on its team bus killed and wounded several people, including players.[50] Togo appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and FIFA president Sepp Blatter mediated. The CAF Executive Committee lifted the ban on 14 May 2010.[51]
End of the Hayatou era
Hayatou led CAF for 29 years, the longest tenure of any president. At the General Assembly in Addis Ababa on 16 March 2017, the Malagasy administrator Ahmad Ahmad defeated him by 34 votes to 20, ending his presidency.[52][53]
Ahmad presidency (2017–2021)
Ahmad took office as CAF president and FIFA vice-president in March 2017 on a reform platform, backed by a coalition of association heads and by FIFA president Gianni Infantino.[52] His term became defined by governance disputes. In 2019, FIFA seconded its secretary-general to CAF for six months to audit and assist the confederation, a step some African officials criticised as external tutelage.[52]
On 23 July 2020 CAF adopted its first continental strategy for women's football, developed from a taskforce workshop held with FIFA in Cairo in November 2019 and organised around five pillars covering development, competitions, marketing, professionalisation and social impact.[54][55] At a meeting on 30 June 2020 the Executive Committee cancelled that year's Women's Africa Cup of Nations, the first cancellation in the competition's history, and approved the creation of a continental women's club competition.[56] Regulations for the CAF Women's Champions League were approved in Cairo that December.[57]
In November 2020, the FIFA Ethics Committee banned Ahmad for five years and fined him 200,000 Swiss francs, finding that he had breached his duty of loyalty, mismanaged funds and abused his position, in connection with a CAF equipment deal with the firm Tactical Steel and the financing of an Umrah pilgrimage for association presidents.[52] The Court of Arbitration for Sport later reduced the ban but upheld enough of it to bar him from the 2021 election.[53]
Motsepe presidency (2021–present)
The South African mining businessman Patrice Motsepe, owner of Mamelodi Sundowns, was elected CAF president unopposed at the General Assembly in Johannesburg in March 2021, becoming the confederation's first president from outside its founding North and East African base and its first anglophone leader.[58] He resigned the presidency of Mamelodi Sundowns on the day of his election, handing the role to his son Tlhopie Motsepe and citing CAF rules barring its president from association with a club.[59] At the same assembly Kanizat Ibrahim of the Comoros was elected to the seat that CAF's statutes reserve on the Executive Committee for a woman, and became the confederation's first female vice-president, holding the women's football portfolio.[60][61]
Motsepe's first term was credited with stabilising CAF's finances and raising prize money across its competitions; the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast drew a reported global audience of 1.4 billion.[58][62] On 12 March 2025, at an extraordinary assembly in Cairo, Motsepe was re-elected unopposed for a second four-year term running to 2029; the former Cameroon striker Samuel Eto'o won a seat on the executive committee, and Bestine Kazadi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo took the reserved seat.[58][63]
The first CAF Women's Champions League was played in Cairo in November 2021 and won by Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies, who beat Hasaacas Ladies of Ghana 2–0. The inaugural edition carried no prize money.[64][65] CAF announced a prize structure in October 2022, awarding the winners $400,000, which Inside World Football reported as ending "a months-long controversy over the lack of prize money for the continent's premier club competition".[66] The figure was held at $400,000 for 2023, in a year when CAF substantially raised the prize money for the men's Super Cup, and rose to $600,000 in 2024.[67][68]
Prize money for the Women's Africa Cup of Nations rose from $200,000 to the winners in 2018 to $500,000 in 2022, $1 million for the edition played in 2025 and $2 million in 2026, with the total pool rising from $975,000 to $5.8 million over the same period. Al Jazeera noted that the 2026 women's pool remained below the $10 million awarded to the winners of the men's Africa Cup of Nations.[69][70]
Africa's allocation at the Women's World Cup rose to four places with the expansion of the finals to 32 teams in 2023, when Nigeria, South Africa and Morocco all reached the round of sixteen, Morocco on its debut.[44][71] CAF expanded the Women's Africa Cup of Nations from twelve teams to sixteen for the 2026 edition, announced on 5 November 2025.[72]
In March 2026 CAF postponed the tournament from its scheduled dates of 17 March to 3 April, twelve days before it was due to begin, citing "unforeseen circumstances", and rescheduled it for July and August. The decision drew criticism from players and coaches. South Africa's coach Desiree Ellis asked "do you think this would happen in the men's game?", Nigeria's Rasheedat Ajibade said "African women's football deserves better", and Christy Ucheibe called the postponement "disrespectful to what we represent". Premium Times described the decision as showing "a lack of professional foresight", noting that the tournament is Africa's primary qualification route for the Women's World Cup.[73][74]
On 6 October 2023, CAF announced the formation of the African Clubs Association, bringing together representatives of 60 leading African clubs.[75]
With the 2026 tournament expanded to 48 teams, Africa's guaranteed allocation rose from five places to nine, its largest ever. A tenth African place was secured through the intercontinental play-off, taken by the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[76]
↑CAF's history holds that FASA was disqualified for refusing to field a racially mixed side. Bolsmann (2010, p. 38), working from the FASA archive, records that FASA had voted to participate and then withdrew, writing to the Sudanese association that "owing to the time factor and the International situation in North Africa and the Middle East our entry for the African Cup Competition is withdrawn", and that the Sudanese hosts replied the tournament dates would stand. Bolsmann identifies the mixed-team account as CAF's own claim, citing Mahjoub (ed.), Confédération Africaine de Football 1957–1997.
↑Some secondary accounts give the expulsion year as 1958, conflating it with the escalation of CAF pressure on FASA through the June 1958 Stockholm meeting. Bolsmann (2010, p. 39) dates the expulsion to the 1960 Rome meeting, citing Alegi's Laduma! (p. 117). Several accounts giving 1958 also cite Alegi, so the discrepancy appears to rest on differing readings of the same source rather than on independent evidence.
↑This account of a proposed Southern African confederation is uncited. It does not appear in Rofe and Tomlinson (2020), which works from FIFA's Zurich archive and Rous's annotated minutes of the 1966 London Congress, nor in Darby (2019) on the African boycott.
↑Sources differ on which tournament was the first. RSSSF records the 1991 and 1995 home-and-away competitions as the first two editions, noting that "the first two editions were decided by a home-and-away final, since the third edition a final tournament is organised". CAF's own records and edition numbering begin with the 1998 finals, and the widely cited count of Nigeria's titles excludes 1991 and 1995.
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