Key Points
- CAF set the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations for June 19 to July 17, 2027.
- Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will co-host — the tournament's first three-nation edition.
- It is the first AFCON staged in East Africa's CECAFA region since Ethiopia in 1976.
- Twenty-four teams will compete, with the three hosts qualifying automatically.
The next Africa Cup of Nations has a date. The Confederation of African Football has scheduled the 2027 edition — branded "Pamoja 2027," Swahili for "together" — from June 19 to July 17, 2027, with the opening match on Saturday, June 19 and the final on Saturday, July 17.
The tournament will be co-hosted by Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, a set of firsts for the competition: the first AFCON staged across three nations, and the first held in the CECAFA region of East Africa since Ethiopia hosted in 1976. Twenty-four teams will contest the title, with the three host nations qualifying automatically and the rest coming through the qualifiers. Morocco arrive as defending champions after winning the 2025 edition.
The scheduling choices carry real weight. Handing the tournament to three East African federations pushes CAF's flagship event — and the infrastructure spending that comes with it — into a region that has never hosted, a deliberate widening of African football's map. The June-July window is the other tell: a mid-year slot chases cleaner global attention than a December tournament fighting Europe's club calendar, even as it raises the familiar tug-of-war over releasing continental stars from their clubs. For a competition whose best players anchor Europe's biggest sides, when it is played is as political as where.
Those stars are the same names that lit up the 2026 World Cup: Morocco, fresh off a run that saw them beat the Netherlands on penalties and reach the quarterfinals behind an Azzedine Ounahi brace, plus a Ghana side that opened its World Cup with a late winner. They will reconvene in East Africa two years from now.
Comments