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Zimbabwe in tough pot ahead of AFCON draw
2 hrs ago |
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The seedings for Tuesday's
draw for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers have been confirmed,
with 48 African nations divided into four pots ahead of the composition
of the qualifying groups.
The qualifying campaign will feature 12 groups of four teams each, with the top two teams from each group advancing to the 24-team finals scheduled to take place from June 10 to July 17 next year.
However, the qualification process will be more complex than usual because the tournament will be jointly hosted by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Although the three co-hosts are automatically guaranteed places at the finals, they will still participate in the qualification campaign.
Under the qualification format approved by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the first and second-placed teams from the nine groups without a co-host will qualify directly for the finals.
In the three groups containing a co-host nation, only the highest-placed team that is not Kenya, Tanzania or Uganda will secure qualification.
CAF has also ruled that the three co-hosts must be placed in separate groups during Tuesday's draw, which will take place in Cairo.
The seedings for the draw were determined using the latest FIFA world rankings released on April 1.
CAF confirmed that the draw process will begin with the placement of the Level 4 teams before proceeding upward through the pots until the Level 1 teams are allocated, meaning top-ranked nations will have to wait until the final stages to discover their opponents.
The qualifiers will be played across three international windows, running from September 21 to October 6, November 9 to 17 this year, and March 22 to 30 next year.
Each team will play two qualification matches during every international window as the race for places at the 2027 AFCON finals intensifies.
The pots for the draw will be:
Level 1: Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Cameroon, DR Congo, Mali, South Africa, Burkina Faso
Level 2: Cape Verde, Ghana, Guinea, Gabon, Uganda, Angola, Benin, Zambia, Mozambique, Madagascar, Equatorial Guinea, Comoros
Level 3: Kenya, Libya, Tanzania, Niger, Mauritania, Gambia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Namibia, Togo, Malawi, Rwanda
Level 4: Zimbabwe, Guinea-Bissau, Congo, Central African Republic, Liberia, Burundi, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Botswana, South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia.
The qualifying campaign will feature 12 groups of four teams each, with the top two teams from each group advancing to the 24-team finals scheduled to take place from June 10 to July 17 next year.
However, the qualification process will be more complex than usual because the tournament will be jointly hosted by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Although the three co-hosts are automatically guaranteed places at the finals, they will still participate in the qualification campaign.
Under the qualification format approved by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the first and second-placed teams from the nine groups without a co-host will qualify directly for the finals.
In the three groups containing a co-host nation, only the highest-placed team that is not Kenya, Tanzania or Uganda will secure qualification.
CAF has also ruled that the three co-hosts must be placed in separate groups during Tuesday's draw, which will take place in Cairo.
The seedings for the draw were determined using the latest FIFA world rankings released on April 1.
CAF confirmed that the draw process will begin with the placement of the Level 4 teams before proceeding upward through the pots until the Level 1 teams are allocated, meaning top-ranked nations will have to wait until the final stages to discover their opponents.
The qualifiers will be played across three international windows, running from September 21 to October 6, November 9 to 17 this year, and March 22 to 30 next year.
Each team will play two qualification matches during every international window as the race for places at the 2027 AFCON finals intensifies.
The pots for the draw will be:
Level 1: Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Cameroon, DR Congo, Mali, South Africa, Burkina Faso
Level 2: Cape Verde, Ghana, Guinea, Gabon, Uganda, Angola, Benin, Zambia, Mozambique, Madagascar, Equatorial Guinea, Comoros
Level 3: Kenya, Libya, Tanzania, Niger, Mauritania, Gambia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Namibia, Togo, Malawi, Rwanda
Level 4: Zimbabwe, Guinea-Bissau, Congo, Central African Republic, Liberia, Burundi, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Botswana, South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia.
Source - Supersport
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