Host country Ivory Coast | Dates early 2021 (expected) | |
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Teams 16 (expected) (from 1 confederation) Venue(s) TBA (in TBA host cities) | ||
The 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (also referred to as AFCON 2021 or CAN 2021) is scheduled to be the 33rd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the biennial international men's football championship of Africa organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). The tournament is scheduled to be hosted by Ivory Coast. The competition is likely to be held in January 2021. The champion will qualify for the 2021 FIFA Confederations Cup.
Contents
Host selection
After the CAF Executive Committee meeting on 24 January 2014, it was announced that there were three official candidates for the 2021 edition:
This list was different from the list of the host nation bids for both the 2019 and 2021 edition of the Cup of Nations as announced by CAF in November 2013, with Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Zambia also on the original list. All three official candidates also bid for hosting the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.
The decision of the host country was postponed from early 2014 to grant each bidding country adequate time to receive the inspection delegation. After the final vote at the CAF Executive Committee meeting, on 20 September 2014, the CAF announced the hosts for the 2019, 2021 and 2023 AFCON tournaments: 2019 to Cameroon, 2021 to Ivory Coast, and 2023 to Guinea.
Qualified teams
The following teams qualified for the tournament.
Format
Only the hosts will receive an automatic qualification spot, the other 15 teams will qualify through a qualification tournament. At the finals, the 16 teams will be drawn into four groups of four teams each. The teams in each group play a single round robin. After the group stage, the top two teams from each group will advance to the quarterfinals. The quarterfinal winners will advance to the semifinals. The semifinal losers will play in third place match, while semifinal winners will play in final.
Draw
TBD