The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has invited its member associations that represent 54 African countries to submit bids to host the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) for 2028, 2032 and 2036 tournaments.
CAF has developed the AFCON hosting rights for the 2028, 2032 and 2036 bidding framework with the support of its independent expert adviser, PwC, and its technical, financial and external legal advisers.
The bidding framework establishes a transparent, credible and ethical process for the evaluation and selection of the host country or host countries for each AFCON edition and is in accordance with global best practices.
AFCON remains CAF’s biggest sporting event in Africa and is also amongst the biggest sporting events in the world with more than 3.2 billion TV audiences and 6 billion digital views globally.
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Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda will host the competition in 2027, tagged ‘PAMOJA ‘, and will take place from 19th June 2027 to 17th July 2027.
The Pharaohs of Egypt are the most successful team with seven titles (1957, 1959, 1986, 1998, 2006, 2008, 2010) followed by the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon five titles (1984, 1988, 2000, 2002, 2017), Black Stars of Ghana four times (1963, 1965, 1978, 1982), Super Eagles of Nigeria three titles (1980, 1994, 2013) and the Elephants of Ivory Coast also with three titles (1992, 2015, 2023).
Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon is the top scorer in AFCON history with 18 goals in 29 appearances (apps) with an average of 0.62 goals per match (gpm) and was closely followed by Ivorian Laurent Pokou (14 goals, 12 apps, 1.17 gpm). Others are Rashidi Yekini of Nigeria (13 goals, 20 apps, 0.65 gpm); Hassan El-Shazly of Egypt (12 goals, 8 apps, 1.50 gpm) and Patrick Mboma of Cameroon (11 goals, 17 apps, 0.65 gpm complete the top five leading scorers.
Raafat Attia scored the first-ever goal at the AFCON in the first match of the inaugural tournament on 10th February, 1957; he got the opening goal for Egypt against hosts Sudan in a 2–1 victory. Ad-Diba was the first-ever player to score a hat-trick in an Africa Cup of Nations match; he scored four for Egypt in a 4–0 victory against Ethiopia on 16th February, 1957, the final match of the inaugural tournament.
Ad-Diba was also the first-ever top goalscorer in the AFCON tournament, scoring 5 goals for Egypt in 1957. The oldest goalscorer, Hossam Hassan, was 39 years and 174 days old when he scored for Egypt against DR Congo in a 4–1 victory on 3rd February, 2006.
Taofeek Lawal
