The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced the draws for the preliminary round fixtures of the Morocco 2025 Africa Cup of Nations Qualifications phase.
The draw was conducted at CAF’s headquarters in Cairo, Egypt on Tuesday with the eight lowest-ranked teams in the last FIFA ranking involved in the preliminary round.
The teams which include; Somalia, Djibouti, Sao Tome, Chad, Mauritius, South Sudan, Liberia, and Eswatini will play on a home-and-away basis during the FIFA Window of March 18 to March 26.
Below is the preliminary draw of AFCON 2025:
First leg:
Somalia vs Eswatini
Sao Tome vs South Sudan
Chad vs Mauritius
Djibouti vs Liberia
Second leg:
Eswatini vs Somalia
South Sudan vs Sao Tome
Mauritius vs Chad
Liberia vs Djibouti
According to the CAF format for the preliminary round, the winners for each round will join the 44 exempted teams for the competition’s group stage.
However, 24 teams will participate in the AFCON 2025 finals to be hosted by Morocco during the leagues’ break between July – August next year.
The previous two editions of the Africa Cup of Nations were both pushed back from the original dates for unavoidable circumstances.
For example, the 2021 tournament, hosted by Cameroon, was played in January and February of 2022 after initially being postponed due to Covid-related concerns while the most recent edition had initially been planned for June and July last year but was rescheduled over weather concerns.
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