The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced the draw for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers preliminary round will be held on Tuesday, February 20, 2024.
The draw for the qualifiers will be held in Cairo, Egypt at 14h00 local time (12h00 GMT).
The preliminary round of the qualifiers will be played by a knock-out system and will include the lower ranked teams in accordance with the FIFA rankings.
Eight (8) lowest-ranked teams, Somalia, Djibouti, Sao Tome, Chad, Mauritius, South Sudan, Liberia and Eswatini will battle for qualification to the next stage of the qualifiers.
The matches will be played on home and away basis during the FIFA Window of 18-26 March 2024. The four (4) preliminary round winners will join the 44 exempted teams for the group stage.
The teams qualified from this round will then reach the group stage composed of 48 teams.
Morocco will host the 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations.
Ivory Coast hosted and won the just ended 34th edition of the continental showpiece after beating Nigeria 2-1 in the finals.
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com/Sylvester Ntim
