2020 African Nations Championship


The 2020 African Nations Championship, known as the Total African Nations Championship will be the 6th edition of the African Nations Championship, a biennial football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football exclusively featuring players from the respective national championships. It was originally hosted from 4 to 25 April 2020 in Cameroon. However, CAF announced on 17 March 2020 that the tournament had been postponed to a later date due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 30 June CAF announced that the tournament would be held in January 2021.
Ethiopia were formerly awarded as host of the tournament, but the EFF admitted it was not ready to host this competition, and hosting rights were awarded to Cameroon instead. The final tournament was originally to be played during January and February, but it was moved to April, before being postponed again.
Unlike the African Cup of Nations, the competing national teams must be composed of players playing in their domestic league. For example, a Cameroonian player is only eligible to play for the Cameroon national team if he is playing for a Cameroonian club.
Morocco are the defending champions.

Host selection

Ethiopia were originally officially appointed to host the tournament on 4 February 2018, after the final of the previous tournament in Morocco. Cameroon were appointed to replace Ethiopia to host the tournament on 13 April 2019.

Qualification

The qualifying rounds took place in 2019. Djibouti and Gabon were banned as they withdrew during the 2018 African Nations Championship qualification.

Qualified teams

The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament. Tunisia qualified for the tournament but withdrew in January 2020. On 20 January 2020, Libya, which were eliminated by Tunisia in the qualifying round, were invited to take part in place and given a deadline of 28 January 2020 to decide whether to participate. Libya decided to accept the invitation. Tunisia were banned from the next edition of the African Nations Championship.
TeamZoneAppearancePrevious best performanceFIFA ranking
at start of event
Central Zone4th
Central Zone3rd
Central Zone5th
Central Eastern Zone4th
Central Eastern Zone2nd
Central Eastern Zone5th
Northern Zone4th
Northern Zone4th
Southern Zone2nd
Southern Zone4th
Southern Zone5th
Western Zone A3rd
Western Zone A4th
Western Zone B3rd
Western Zone B3rd
Western Zone B1st

Venues

Matches will be held in four venues at three cities: Yaoundé, Limbe and Douala. The fixtures were announced on 24 February 2020.

Squads

Each squad can contain a maximum of 23 players.

Draw

The draw of the final tournament was held on 17 February 2020, 19:00 WAT, at the Palais Polyvalent des Sports de Yaoundé in Yaoundé. The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. Teams were allocated into four pots, with the hosts Cameroon seeded in Group A and the defending champions Morocco seeded in Group C.
Pot 1Pot 2Pot 3Pot 4

  • Group stage

    The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals.
    ;Tiebreakers
    Teams are ranked according to points, and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings :
    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 are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
    5. Goal difference in all group matches;
    6. Goals scored in all group matches;
    7. Drawing of lots.
    All times are local, WAT.

    Group A

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    Group B

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    Group C

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    Group D

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    Knockout stage

    In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner if necessary, except for the third place match where penalty shoot-out is used to decide the winner if necessary.

    Bracket

    Quarter-finals

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    Semi-finals

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    Third place match

    Final