The race for places at the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations has begun, with 21 qualification spots still available for the 24-team continental tournament.
The 36th edition of the competition, officially known as the TotalEnergies CAF AFCON PAMOJA 2027, will make history as the first edition to be jointly hosted by three countries.
Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda will stage the tournament, with the three East African nations already guaranteed places in the finals as hosts.
The tournament’s “Pamoja” branding, a Swahili word meaning “together”, reflects the joint hosting arrangement involving the three neighbouring countries.
While the hosts are assured of their places, they will still feature in the qualifying campaign, with special provisions applying to their respective groups.
How the hosts will feature
Kenya will host matches in the tournament and is expected to use Nairobi’s Talanta Stadium as one of its key venues.
Tanzania will serve as the lead host, with Dar es Salaam’s Benjamin Mkapa Stadium among the principal venues for the competition.
Uganda will also welcome AFCON matches at Kampala’s Mandela National Stadium, which is set to form part of the tournament’s venue list.
With the three hosts taking up three of the 24 available places, the remaining 21 positions will be determined through the qualifying competition.
The 21 places up for grabs
The Confederation of African Football will retain the 24-team format for the 2027 finals, with 48 nations competing across 12 qualifying groups from Groups A to L.
In nine groups that do not contain any of the three host nations, the top two teams will qualify automatically for the tournament.
Those nine groups will therefore produce 18 qualifiers, leaving three additional places to be decided from the groups containing the hosts.
Groups D, H and L have Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania respectively, creating a different qualification arrangement because the host nation in each group already has a guaranteed place in the finals.
In each of those three groups, only the highest-ranked team among the non-host countries will qualify for the AFCON finals.
This means that the presence of a host nation will not prevent another team in the group from earning a place, but only one non-host side from each of the three groups can secure qualification.
The arrangement will produce three qualifiers from the host groups and 18 from the other nine groups, bringing the number of teams qualifying through the campaign to 21.
A historic East African tournament
The qualification structure will ultimately complete the 24-team field alongside Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, setting the stage for the tournament scheduled for 2027.
For the three hosts, the competition will provide an opportunity to stage Africa’s biggest national team football tournament jointly, while the qualifying campaign gives the continent’s other teams a route to the remaining places.
The outcome of the 12 groups will therefore determine which nations join the three automatic qualifiers when the continental championship begins in East Africa in 2027.
