2025 Africa Cup of Nations

The 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, also referred to as AFCON 2025 or CAN 2025, is scheduled to be the 35th edition of the biennial African football tournament organised by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). It will be hosted by Morocco for the second time and the first since 1988. Morocco was originally scheduled to host the 2015 edition, but withdrew due to fears stemming from the Western African Ebola virus epidemic. Due to FIFA expanding its Club World Cup competition to 32 teams and having it scheduled for June and July that year, this edition of the tournament will be played between 21 December 2025 and 18 January 2026.

The situation has been further complicated by the addition of two extra match days scheduled for the last two weeks of January in the expanded Champions League that begins next season in Europe. That means the traditional window for Afcon in mid-January to mid-February – when the knockout stages of the Champions League are due to start – is likely to cause even more disruption than usual.

This edition of the tournament was scheduled to be the second after 2019 to take place during the northern hemisphere's summer, in order to reduce scheduling conflicts with European club teams and competitions; the previous 2023 edition was moved to January and February 2024 owing to the adverse summer weather conditions in Ivory Coast.

Guinea was originally set as hosts for this edition of the tournament, but had its hosting rights stripped after affirming its inadequacy of hosting preparations. After a second bidding process, Morocco was named as the new hosts on 27 September 2023. Ivory Coast are the defending champions.

Host selection
CAF stripped Cameroon from hosting the 2019 edition of the tournament on 30 November 2018 due lack of speed of progress in preparations, but accepted former CAF president Ahmad Ahmad's request to stage the next edition in 2021. Consequently, the original hosts of 2021, Ivory Coast, became hosts of the 2023 edition with Guinea instead hosting the 2025 edition, which until then had no hosts. The CAF President confirmed the timetable shift after a meeting with Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara in Abidjan, Ivory Coast on 30 January 2019.

On 30 September 2022, current CAF president Patrice Motsepe announced that Guinea had been stripped as host for the 2025 edition due to inadequacy and speed of progress in hosting preparations. Consequently, a new process was re-opened for a replacement host bidder. On 27 September 2023, the 2025 edition was awarded to Morocco and the 2027 edition to Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Qualification
On 18 February 2024, CAF released the procedures for the preliminary round and its draw which was held at its headquarters in Cairo, Egypt two days later, i.e. 20 February.

The detailed schedule has the following format according to Daily Post Nigeria:
 * Preliminary round : 20 – 26 March 2024
 * Matchdays 1 and 2 : 2 – 10 September 2024
 * Matchdays 3 and 4 : 7 – 15 October 2024
 * Matchdays 5 and 6 : 11 – 19 November 2024

The group stage draw will take place on 4 July 2024 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Qualified teams
The following teams have qualified for this edition of the tournament.

Venues
On 27 September 2023, the Royal Moroccan Football Federation unveiled a list of six stadiums in six cities to host this edition of the tournament.

Group stage
The top two teams of each group, along with the best four third-placed teams, will advance to the round of 16.

Tiebreakers
Teams will be ranked according to the three points for a win system (3 points for a win, 1 for a draw, 0/none points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 74):
 * 1) Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 2) Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 3) Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 4) If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, if two teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are applied exclusively to these two teams;
 * 5) Goal difference in all group matches;
 * 6) Goals scored in all group matches;
 * 7) Drawing of lots.

Knockout stage
 The specific match-ups involving the third-placed teams depend on which four third-placed teams qualify for the round of 16:

{{legend|#BBF3BB|Possible combinations of third-placed teams}}

Broadcasting
Below is the list of the 2023 AFCON broadcasting rights holders: