The road towards qualifying for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco will start today (Tuesday) as the 52 countries jostling to qualify and join the North African hosts in the 35th edition of the AFCON will know the route to Morocco 2025.
The draw will hold in Cairo, Egypt at 1pm Nigerian time and 12h00 GMT.
Twenty three countries will go through the qualifying stages to join automatic qualifier, Morocco as hosts.
The bulk of the contesting teams will have to wait to later in the year before they take to the fields. However, based on the current FIFA ranking released last Thursday, the last eight ranked teams will go through the preliminary round which holds next month.
From the eight teams, four will join the other 44 teams that will contest in the group stage from where 23 teams will emerge to join Morocco.
The eight teams that will play in the preliminary round are Somalia, Djibouti, Sao Tome, Chad, Mauritius, South Sudan, Liberia and Eswatini.
The matches will be played on home and away basis during the FIFA Window of 18-26 March 2024. The eight teams will be divided into two with the top four consisting of Mauritius, South Sudan, Liberia and Eswatini in Pot 2. The last four – Somalia, Djibouti, Sao Tome and Chad will be in Pot 1.
The first ball drawn from Pot 1 will play against the first ball drawn from Pot 2 and the teams of Pot 1 will play the first leg at home. The same process will be repeated for the remaining teams in Pots 1 and 2.
