AFCON 2025 kicked off with all the enthusiasm for which the tournament is known. Morocco, following Côte d’Ivoire, is once again demonstrating respectability and quality of the most popular and globalized event in African sport. All of Africa will be proud of this, because AFCON remains, after decades, one of the continent’s few bright shop windows, standing in contrast to the miserabilist imagery constructed and maintained for centuries by colonial powers and then relayed by the sensationalism and orientalism of the major global media.
Whether one likes football or not, AFCON remains a special moment for Africans, both on the continent and in the diaspora, who experience powerful moments of identity through the teams of their countries of origin. Beyond the competition and the matches, AFCON in Morocco inspires a few reflections.
AFCON every 4 years
For CAF (and European clubs)
Part of the wish of European clubs, driven as much by financial as by sporting interests, is partially realized. The clubs will no longer have to see their African players leave mid-season for a few weeks; every four years seems more acceptable. But as long as the January and February dates are maintained, complaints will occur every four years rather than every two. Absolute satisfaction will only come when AFCON fully aligns with the European league summer break. Attempts in this direction have so far failed.
As long as media and financial power relations remain largely unbalanced, in favour of FIFA and the most powerful European clubs, after more than 68 years of AFCON and CAF, the next logical step will be to schedule AFCON during the northern hemisphere summer. The calendar could then look like this:
· Year 1: FIFA Men’s World Cup
· Year 2: FIFA Women’s World Cup
· Year 3: Euro – AFCON
· Year 4 FIFA Club World Cup
AFCON would then fit neatly into the FIFA–UEFA calendar, no longer disrupting European leagues. The question then becomes, what are the consequences of a four‑year AFCON for African football and its broader ecosystem?
For CAF (economic logic)
AFCON is CAF’s cash cow. Staging it every four years allows CAF to leverage scarcity to negotiate higher television and sponsorship rights and secure sufficient revenue to avoid jeopardizing the institution’s financial viability. The observed growth in AFCON media revenues suggests limited risk and a winning bet for CAF, as long as the competition’s value continues to rise.
The creation of an annual Nations League aims to mitigate this risk and potentially increase revenue through a competition that, like AFCON, should mobilize national sentiments of Africans and their diasporas. Modelled on UEFA’s version and aligned with FIFA international windows, this Nations League would have a minimal impact on European clubs employing African players. It should enable African fans to attend more home games of their national teams.
The real challenge, however, will be building the popularity of a new competition for national teams. Questions remain about how African publics, diasporas, and other audiences who currently value and watch the AFCON will respond. Will they follow, with the same fervour, an annual event without deep history?
For African supporters and continental football
Since the era of satellite television, CAF has capitalized on AFCON’s popularity to generate substantial revenue, even as sports broadcast rights remain generally low in Africa. A combination of factors has enabled a significant increase in its global audience:
- Continuous improvement in organization and infrastructure
- Broader competitiveness, supported by the influx of dual‑nationality players, particularly in so‑called “small” nations
- Increased interest from diasporas, who have easier access to the tournament thanks to transnational broadcasters and streaming
- The constant visibility of African footballers in the world’s most media‑exposed leagues and clubs
Moving AFCON to a four‑year cycle should not, in itself, fundamentally alter these factors. However, the AFCON is more than just media rights and sponsorship money. Some parts of it are uniquely African and deserve attention.
Journalist Gérard Dreyfus wrote that “AFCON is the continent’s breathing space, its major rendezvous, its space of expression, its moment of pride.” Indeed, as noted in the introduction, AFCON represents far more than a sporting competition for Africans. It is an identity moment for nations, citizens, and the diaspora, generating collective joy, pride, and recognition. Every two years, the AFCON bond is activated and nurtured by African people’s imaginations, identities, and distinctive cultures. This magical moment is eagerly awaited. Four years of waiting will feel long. Will the same level of interest and enthusiasm be maintained? For football aficionados, probably, but what about more casual audiences, attached to what AFCON represents beyond the game itself?
Between the global calendar and local anchoring
The argument for a smooth integration into the global football calendar, and for adapting to a commercial logic increasingly detached from the intangible dimensions of African football and its audiences, highlights deep challenges. It also raises philosophical questions for an Africa torn between a desire to belong to the currents of hyper‑commercialized football globalization and the will to preserve its distinctiveness and the interests of the populations who love this sport regardless of their social and economic status.
Within the global football‑business system, marked by highly asymmetrical power relations, CAF is often drawn into hyper‑commercialization driven by those who reap the most significant profits and are primarily motivated to maximize returns, even at the expense of the least-affluent fans. The interests of the most powerful and richest ultimately prevail. Former CAF president Issa Hayatou resisted pressure for a long time to comply with the demands of dominant actors, particularly European stakeholders and FIFA. Could he have continued to resist, given that CAF and African football are increasingly financially dependent on FIFA and European football for transfer revenues, and that the growing share of dual‑citizenship players is in most participating teams?
An unfavourable systemic spiral
African football is caught in a systemic spiral in which, faced with often meagre state resources, commercialization appears necessary. Unfortunately, in economic contexts maladapted to the sports business, where most domestic football is usually deprived of proper infrastructure, qualified human resources, robust club identities, and appropriate governance, the imported and envied commercial model is largely unsuitable to the continent’s economic and endogenous development challenges.
It is essential to adopt a more systemic approach to African football. Analysing it in isolation, without its socio‑economic context, history, cultures, and the complexity of African identities, can only exacerbate asymmetries in relation to the financial power of FIFA and European clubs. This disconnect also risks isolating the most commercially viable component, the AFCON, from the rest of the ecosystem. The shop window (the AFCON) may become more polished, but the backyard (the everyday club competitions) would remain in distress for a long time.
A four‑year AFCON will likely make the showcase of African football more lucrative and contribute to CAF’s economic viability. But for Africa, is that enough? Since 1957, Africa has sought recognition and appreciation on the global stage. Until the end of Apartheid in 1990, the governance of African football was defined by political struggles and an ambition for stronger football domestically and on the global stage. This paradigm has gradually shifted toward “all‑out commercial,” as elsewhere, to those with the deepest pockets and the best players, who, in turn, capture the largest share of revenues, bonuses, and political influence. This systemic spiral is now firmly in place and is struggling to evolve toward a model better suited to the continental identity, one less rooted in mimicking glamorous European football broadcast every weekend across the continent.
Starting in 2028, Africa should wait four years to celebrate its football fully, the unique occasion to collectively experience its music, its songs, the “fashion show” of its teams, its humor, and that distinctive language, both colorful and vibrant with emotion, expressed before, during, and after victories as well as defeats.
gakindes@gmail.com