African Cup of Nations 2023 Draw: All You Need To Know

Rabat – The African Cup of Nations (AFCON) is the most prestigious football competition in Africa. The next championship will take place in Cote d’Ivoire in 2023.

The draw for the AFCON 2023 qualification matches will take place on Tuesday, April 19 starting at 5:30 p.m. GMT (7:30 p.m. South African time). The event will be held at the studios of the SuperSport channel in Johannesburg, South Africa,

Moroccan sports channel Arryadia will broadcast the draw live on its satellite station. The event will also stream live on both the youtube channel and official website of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), as well as the Qatari group’s free-to-air channel BeIn Sports News.

Based on the official FIFA ranking announced on March 31, 2022, the 48 teams that qualified for the second round of the qualifiers will be divided into four pots.

The teams will subsequently be drawn into 12 four-team groups -A to L – with the playoffs beginning in June 2022. The two best teams from each group will qualify for the Cote d’Ivoire competition.

Even though the host of the competition Cote d’Ivoire has already qualified for the event, their team will take part in the draw. This means that just one other team from their group will qualify for the tournament.

CAF Competitions Director Samson Adamu will conduct the draw with assistance from professional football stars Lucas Radebe from South Africa, and Salomon Kalou from Cote d’Ivoire.

Pot grouping:

The draw will start with pot 4. The first drawn team will be assigned into the first available group alphabetically (A), the second into group B, the third into group C, and so on. The same procedure will be repeated for the remaining pots until the draw is complete.

Pot 1: Senegal, Morocco, Nigeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Cameroon, Algeria, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Pot 2: South Africa, Cape Verde, Guinea, Gabon, Benin, Uganda, Zambia, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, Kenya, and Sierra Leone.

Pot 3: Namibia, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Libya, Mozambique, Malawi, Togo, Zimbabwe, Gambia, Angola, and Comoros.

Pot 4: Tanzania, Central African Republic, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Eswatini, Lesotho, Botswana, Liberia, South Sudan, and Sao Tome and Principe.