The Africa Cup of Nations is the title contest between the men's national sides of Africa, staged by CAF, the continent's football confederation; English speakers call it AFCON, French speakers CAN. First contested in 1957, it reaches its 36th edition in 2027, and since 2019 the finals have taken 24 teams instead of 16. The tournament has come round every two years, but a CAF announcement of 20 December 2025 moves it to even-numbered years on a four-year cycle from 2028 and adds an annual African Nations League from 2029. AFCON 2027 is therefore the last edition played in an odd year.
Three countries share the finals for the first time: Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, chosen as joint hosts by CAF on 27 September 2023. The tournament runs from Saturday 19 June to Saturday 17 July 2027 under the official title AFCON PAMOJA 2027. East Africa last staged it in 1976, when Ethiopia was the host, so the region has waited 51 years, and the finals now land in the CECAFA zone to which Djibouti also belongs. Morocco hold the title under a CAF ruling on the 2025 final; Senegal's appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport was still undecided in September 2026.
Forty-eight teams, twenty-one open places ποΈ
All 54 member associations of CAF entered, the hosts included. The FIFA ranking of 19 November 2025 set the order: the 42 highest-placed entrants went straight to the group stage, and the bottom 12 played two-legged preliminary ties between 25 and 31 March 2026. The six winners completed a field of 48, and the Cairo draw of 19 May 2026 made 12 groups of four teams, each side facing every rival home and away.
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Automatic entry as co-hosts | Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania | 3 |
Winner and runner-up of a group without a host | Groups A, B, C, E, F, G, I, J and K | 18 |
Best-placed side other than the host | Groups D, H, L: one ticket each | 3 |
Final tournament | All routes | 24 |
The hosts play all six qualifiers anyway, but their finishing position changes nothing for them: in those three host groups only the strongest non-host team reaches the finals. As of mid-September 2026 only the hosts are qualified, because the group stage has not started.
September and October on the Djibouti clock π
Qualifying uses three international windows: matchdays 1 and 2 from 24 September to 6 October 2026, matchdays 3 and 4 between 9 and 17 November 2026, matchdays 5 and 6 between 22 and 30 March 2027. Only the first two matchdays have dates and kick-off times so far. CAF lists every start in GMT and Djibouti runs on UTC+3, so the official 13:00, 16:00 and 19:00 slots begin here at 16:00, 19:00 and 22:00. The table follows the three future hosts and South Sudan, the side that knocked Djibouti out.
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Uganda | H: Tunisia, Libya, Botswana | Tunisia β Uganda, Thursday 24 September, 22:00 | Uganda β Libya, Tuesday 29 September, 19:00 |
Tanzania | L: Nigeria, Madagascar, Guinea-Bissau | Tanzania β Guinea-Bissau, Friday 25 September, 16:00 | Madagascar β Tanzania, Tuesday 29 September, 16:00 |
Kenya | D: South Africa, Guinea, Eritrea | Kenya β Eritrea, Saturday 26 September, 16:00 | Guinea β Kenya, Thursday 1 October, 19:00 |
South Sudan | B: Egypt, Angola, Malawi | Malawi β South Sudan, Friday 25 September, 19:00 | South Sudan β Egypt, Tuesday 29 September, 16:00 |
Half of these kick-offs come at 16:00, mid-afternoon in Djibouti, and Tunisia against Uganda is the only one that starts at ten at night. Each day's full sports programme, club football included, opens from the main page of 1xBet in Djibouti.
The Red Sea Sharks: out in Juba, watching the region π¦
Djibouti's national team, Les Requins de la Mer Rouge, is run by the FΓ©dΓ©ration Djiboutienne de Football and will not be at AFCON 2027. Ranked 196th in the world at seeding, 49th of the 54 entrants, it was paired with South Sudan in the preliminary round, and both legs were played at Juba Stadium. The first, on 26 March 2026, was nominally Djibouti's home game, held without spectators, and ended 0:4. Three days later Djibouti won 1:0 through Samuel Akinbinu in the 77th minute and went out 1:4 on aggregate.
Akinbinu is the national team's record goalscorer with 10 goals; Ali Youssouf Farada holds the appearance record with 39. In 35 editions Djibouti has never reached the finals. It was a French territory for the tournaments from 1957 to 1976 and not yet a CAF member for those from 1978 to 1992; since then it has sat out seven qualifying competitions, withdrawn from two, and seen all eight campaigns it completed between 2000 and 2025 end before the finals.
With the Sharks out, local attention moves to the four teams in the table above. Their qualifiers and those of every other group are posted in advance under Football, days before each window, beside the week's club matches. From the first whistle each one continues on the live football board, with the lines recalculated as play unfolds.
AFCON 2027 on the 1xBet line β½
Before kick-off each Africa Cup of Nations qualifier comes with the usual football menu: home win, draw or away win, double chance, handicaps, the number of goals, whether both teams score, the exact score, and bets settled on the first or the second half alone.
Tournament-long bets are kept apart from single matches: the market on who wins the finals appears among the outrights of the full pre-match catalogue of 1xBet once it opens. The balance is kept in Djiboutian francs (DJF), and stakes and winnings are settled in that currency. Anyone new to the site can register a Djibouti account before the opening matchday.
Ten CAF members still without a finals appearance
Nine other CAF members share Djibouti's blank record at the finals: the Central African Republic, Chad, Eritrea, Eswatini, Lesotho, SΓ£o TomΓ© and PrΓncipe, the Seychelles, Somalia and South Sudan. Five of those nine are in this autumn's group stage: Lesotho in Group A, South Sudan in B, Somalia in C, Eritrea in D and the Central African Republic in F.
If one of them gets through, the 2027 finals will include a newcomer. A first appearance has ended with the trophy three times in the tournament's past: Egypt in 1957, Ghana in 1963 and South Africa in 1996.
