AFCON
Terrorists plan to derail AFCON with bombs and bullets
On the fourth day of the Africa Cup of Nations, broadcasting from Cameroon to 150 countries this month, the rebels acted on their threat.
A dozen men fired AK-47s into the air less than a quarter-mile from where the Malian soccer team was practising on Wednesday, spooking the players off the field and drawing security forces into a shoot-out that killed a taxi driver and his passenger.
Elsewhere that morning in the southwestern city of Buea, someone tossed a home-made bomb from a cab window, wounding three police officers. A bus of Gambian footballers, startled by the chaos, raced back to their hotel.
Separatist groups that pledged to derail AFCON — Africa’s biggest soccer competition — briefly succeeded. Their stated goal: Remind the world of their grievances with the Cameroonian government.
Hours after the casings cooled, Mali went on to defeat Tunisia 1-0 and attention faded from the five-year conflict often called “neglected” or “forgotten” — even as the rebels vowed more attacks.
“We will continue to carry out anti-AFCON operations,” a separatist spokesman, Capo Daniel, said in a YouTube video Thursday, taking credit for the bullets and explosives. “We will uphold our dignity.”
At least 4,000 people have died since fighting erupted between the separatists and government forces in 2017. Nearly a million have lost their homes.
A billion viewers are expected to watch the AFCON matches, which run through February. Hoping to harness that spotlight, human rights groups are calling for a soccer cease-fire. “Such a truce could be the first step in rebuilding trust and moving toward talks between the authorities and separatist leaders after years of bloodshed,” the International Crisis Group wrote.
Neither side has attempted to make contact, as far as researchers know.
Twenty-four teams are competing in the biennial tournament at six stadiums across Cameroon, including venues in Buea and Limbe, cities in the Anglophone region, where rebels are pushing to create their own country called Ambazonia.
Thousands of fans have flocked in for the games, a flood of jerseys and flags. Many who live in Buea, though — where Mali, Tunisia, Gambia and Mauritania are training — view the rebels’ declarations as warnings.
“You don’t see the football spirit. People who live here — who cannot just leave — are afraid to be associated with the Cup,” said Arrey Elvis Ntui, the Cameroon expert for the International Crisis Group. “We love football, but we prefer to remain alive.”
Days before the shots were fired in Buea, gunmen had ransacked a gas station that displayed AFCON posters and detonated an improvised explosive device in Limbe. (No one was hurt.) The tournament’s mascot, Mola the Lion, went viral for wearing a bulletproof vest.
Daniel, the separatist spokesman, said in a statement, “Do not put football fans’ lives at risk thinking Africa’s most corrupt regime will guarantee security.”
Ntui, who grew up near Buea, had planned to attend the Mali-Tunisia game — discreetly, no jersey — but decided to stay home after the Wednesday clashes.
“The roads were too dangerous,” he said.
Cameroon’s conflict can be traced to the end of French and British colonial rule, which split the nation into a French-speaking majority (80 percent) and English-speaking minority.
The nation’s president of 40 years, Paul Biya, speaks only French in public.
Anglophone activists have long said they have felt shut out of opportunity or flat-out persecuted. Protest movements, met with violent government responses, morphed into armed groups.
Both the rebels and government forces have been accused of extrajudicial killings and sexual assault, among other atrocities.
As the conflict deepens, more Cameroonians are drawn to the separatist cause, analysts say, feeding the cycle of bloodshed.
Exacerbating the mayhem is the Boko Haram insurgency on Cameroon’s northern border, where Islamist militants regularly attack villages with automatic weapons and suicide blasts.
Cameroon was supposed to host AFCON in 2019, but regional soccer authorities determined the country wasn’t ready, citing the unrest and a lack of infrastructure, so Egypt stepped in.
Biya’s government rushed to finish the stadiums — drawing criticism that they should have been more focused on ending the fighting — and, after a year of pandemic delays, AFCON kicked off Jan. 9 in the capital, Yaoundé, with security forces numbering in the thousands standing guard.
Some European clubs, raising concerns about the violence and the coronavirus, tried to restrict African players from travelling to Cameroon, igniting controversy around risks the athletes had already faced in omicron-ravaged Europe.
Tensions around the tournament have not been this high since 2010, when separatists in Angola ambushed a bus of Togolese players, killing three.
The Senegalese Football Federation blasted one English soccer club, Watford, for “disrespectful, pernicious and discriminatory behavior” after the team withheld one of its stars, Ismaila Sarr. (Watford said Sarr was benched because of injuries before allowing him to travel to Cameroon on Jan. 4.)
Cameroon has imposed strict health rules to curb coronavirus transmission, said Yap Boum, a Cameroonian epidemiologist who helped steer the AFCON launch: Everyone must be tested and vaccinated before entering a stadium.
That’s a hefty order in a nation where less than 4 percent of people have been fully vaccinated, he said, so spectators have the option of getting jabbed on their way in.
Health organizers have also prepared for worst-case scenarios.
“If there is any high number of people injured because of football — or because of the separatists — we have a plan with all the hospitals,” Boum said, “to handle a large number of trauma injuries at the same time.”
On opening day in Yaoundé, video captured fans in Cameroon’s green, red and yellow cheering and clapping. Biya and the first lady waved from the sunroof of a black SUV driving laps on the stadium’s track.
Cameroon came back from behind to beat Burkina Faso 2-1.
“The energy was amazing,” said one fan in the stands, Diane Audrey Ngako. “I felt so proud. Thousands and thousands of Cameroonians singing our national anthem.”
The 30-year-old chief executive of a creative agency missed feeling patriotic. She resented the government for letting the Anglophone crisis fester. She wished there didn’t have to be soldiers on every corner.
“Football, this is something that connects us all,” Ngako said.
“This is a moment for the government to recognize what the Anglophone people want. To understand how they felt persecuted in our country. To create a link with all Cameroonians.”
-Washington Post
By Kunle Solaja.
Nigeria’s senior national team, the Super Eagles, will discover their route to the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations when the Confederation of African Football (Confederation of African Football) conducts the qualifying draw on May 19, 2026.
This is an exercise that will define the country’s pathway to the historic PAMOJA 2027 tournament.
The draw, coming after the conclusion of the preliminary round, will feature 48 teams, including co-hosts Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. They will be pooled into 12 groups of four teams each. Only the top two teams from each group will progress to the final tournament, setting up what promises to be a fiercely competitive qualification series.
For Nigeria, a three-time African champion and podium finisher in three of the last four editions, the qualification format is familiar, but the stakes are evolving. They will need a good head start to avert the type of tragedy that defined their World Cup 2026 qualification campaign.
The Super Eagles have maintained a strong record in AFCON qualifying campaigns in recent years, yet inconsistency at the tournament proper has raised expectations for not just qualification, but a deeper continental impact.
The six-match qualification series will be spread across three FIFA international windows:
- * September–October 2026 (Matchdays 1 & 2)
- * November 2026 (Matchdays 3 & 4)
- * March 2027 (Matchdays 5 & 6)
This staggered schedule will test squad depth, technical stability, and administrative efficiency, which are areas that have historically influenced Nigeria’s performance as much as on-field quality.
East Africa Return and Logistical Implications
The 2027 tournament will mark AFCON’s return to the East African region for the first time since the 1976 Africa Cup of Nations.
For Nigeria, this introduces a different competitive environment—altitude variations, travel logistics across three host nations, and potentially unfamiliar playing conditions.
The tri-nation hosting model also means that teams must prepare for a geographically dispersed tournament, requiring early planning in scouting, acclimatisation, and logistics—areas where Nigeria has previously faced challenges in major competitions.
CAF is banking on the momentum generated by recent tournaments such as the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations and 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, both of which recorded significant commercial growth, increased sponsorship value, and expanded global broadcast audiences.
For Nigeria, one of Africa’s most marketable football brands, this growth presents both opportunity and pressure. Strong performances by the Super Eagles not only boost national pride but also reinforce Nigeria’s commercial relevance in African football’s evolving ecosystem.
While the May 19 draw will simply allocate opponents on paper, its implications run deeper. A favourable group could ease Nigeria’s passage, but recent AFCON qualifiers have shown that traditional hierarchies are narrowing, with emerging teams increasingly competitive.
For the Super Eagles, the road to PAMOJA 2027 is not just about qualification—it is about reasserting continental dominance in an era where African football is becoming more competitive, more commercial, and more globally visible.
The journey begins with the draw, but for Nigeria, expectations will stretch far beyond simply making the trip to East Africa.
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By Kunle Solaja.
The Confederation of African Football (Confederation of African Football) has formally unveiled the competition window for the landmark Africa Cup of Nations, tagged PAMOJA 2027, setting the stage for what is shaping up to be one of the most politically and structurally significant tournaments in the competition’s history.
Scheduled to kick off on Saturday, 19 June 2027, with the final fixed for Saturday, 17 July 2027, the tournament marks only the second time the AFCON will be staged in the June–July window. The first was the expanded 24-team edition in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, a shift originally designed to align African football with the European off-season calendar and improve player availability.
A Return to June–July: Progress or Persistent Constraint?
While the timing suggests continuity with the 2019 precedent, it also underscores a deeper tension within African football governance. CAF’s confirmation that the dates required approval from the FIFA Council, following a meeting in Vancouver, raises renewed questions about the confederation’s operational autonomy.
Historically, AFCON scheduling has been vulnerable to external pressures, particularly from European clubs and leagues reluctant to release African players mid-season. The June–July calendar was initially seen as a strategic compromise. However, the necessity of FIFA ratification in 2027 signals that CAF’s flagship tournament still operates within a framework heavily influenced by global football politics.
This development may reignite debate about whether CAF is charting an independent course or increasingly aligning its decisions with FIFA’s broader international calendar priorities.
Beyond scheduling, AFCON 2027 represents a structural leap. For the first time, three nations—Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda—will jointly host the tournament.
This tri-nation model, branded “PAMOJA” (Swahili for togetherness), is more than symbolic. It reflects CAF’s attempt to decentralise hosting rights, reduce infrastructural pressure on single nations, and expand the tournament’s commercial and cultural footprint.
With a projected reach of over 400 million people across East Africa, the tournament offers significant opportunities:
- Market expansion: Opening new commercial corridors in a region historically underrepresented in hosting major football events.
- Infrastructure development: Accelerated investment in stadiums, transport, and tourism across three countries.
- Regional integration: Football as a tool for political and economic cooperation within East Africa.
Yet, the model is not without risks. Multi-country hosting introduces logistical complexities—border coordination, security harmonisation, and infrastructure parity—that CAF has not previously managed at this scale.
Waiting for Key Decisions
CAF has deferred the announcement of which cities or countries will host the opening match and final, decisions that will carry both symbolic and economic weight. These choices could influence regional balance and perceptions of equity among the co-hosts.
AFCON 2027 sits at the intersection of ambition and dependency. On one hand, it embodies innovation—a new hosting model and a reaffirmed global calendar alignment. On the other, it highlights lingering structural challenges, particularly CAF’s reliance on FIFA’s approval mechanisms.
As preparations unfold, the success of PAMOJA 2027 will likely be judged not just by the quality of football on display, but by how effectively CAF navigates these competing forces—continental aspiration versus global integration.
In many ways, AFCON 2027 will be a test of whether African football can expand its horizons without compromising its independence.
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By Kunle Solaja.
Defending champions Morocco will take the first formal step in their title defence when the Confederation of African Football (CAF) conducts the draw for the AFCON PAMOJA 2027 qualifiers on May 19, 2026, two days before the 122nd anniversary of the founding of FIFA.
Fresh from their triumph at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, the Atlas Lions now face the challenge of sustaining continental dominance as they begin the journey toward the historic East African finals, to be co-hosted by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
As reigning champions, Morocco enter the qualifiers with a target on their back. Their recent rise, bolstered by strong World Cup performances and a deep pool of Europe-based talents, has elevated expectations both at home and across the continent.
But history suggests that defending an AFCON title is rarely straightforward. The qualifying format, which includes 48 teams drawn into 12 groups of four, leaves little margin for complacency. Only the top two teams in each group will progress, meaning even established powers must navigate a potentially tricky six-match campaign.
The qualifiers will unfold across three FIFA international windows:
- * September–October 2026 (Matchdays 1 & 2)
- * November 2026 (Matchdays 3 & 4)
- * March 2027 (Matchdays 5 & 6)
For Morocco, maintaining squad cohesion across these windows will be crucial. With players spread across Europe’s top leagues, managing fatigue, travel, and club-country balance will test the technical crew’s planning and depth.
AFCON 2027 will mark the tournament’s return to East Africa for the first time since the 1976 Africa Cup of Nations. The unique three-country hosting model introduces new logistical variables—ranging from climate and altitude differences to travel across multiple venues.
For Morocco, whose recent success has been built on tactical discipline and structured preparation, early adaptation to these conditions could prove decisive in their title defence.
CAF’s recent tournaments—including the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations and Morocco 2025—have recorded unprecedented commercial success, expanding the global reach of African football.
As defending champions, Morocco stand at the centre of this growth. Their performances will not only shape the competitive narrative of AFCON 2027 but also influence the tournament’s commercial appeal and global visibility.
While the May 19 draw will determine Morocco’s immediate opponents, the broader mission is clear: retain continental supremacy in an increasingly competitive African football landscape.
For the Atlas Lions, the road to PAMOJA 2027 is not merely about securing qualification—it is about proving that their recent triumph was not a peak, but the beginning of sustained dominance.
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