CAF has backed down. African football’s governing body voted unanimously on Thursday to return the Africa Cup of Nations to a two-year cycle, tearing up a four-year calendar it had itself announced in December 2025.

The reversal came at a Confederation of African Football executive committee meeting following the body’s strategy conference in Cabo Verde earlier this month.

CAF president Patrice Motsepe tied the climbdown to money. The African Nations League that was meant to fill the gap years would need too long to generate the revenue required to fund football across the continent.

“The decision by the CAF EXCO that the CAF AFCON should take place every Two Years was based on advancing, protecting and promoting the interest of African Football and CAF’s 54 Member Associations, as well as the interest of African players employed by Football Clubs outside Africa,” Motsepe said.

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Coaches led the pushback

The four-year plan ran into resistance from the moment it was unveiled.

“Since the first tournament in 1957, Africa has had its Cup of Nations every two years. We must respect Africa,” Mali head coach Tom Saintfiet told Africanews in January.

Egypt head coach Hossam Hassan accused CAF of bending the calendar to European clubs that did not want to release their African players for national-team duty, telling the same outlet that African competitions were being adapted to European conditions.

Veteran French coach Claude Le Roy, who led Cameroon to the 1988 title and later coached Senegal, DR Congo and Ghana, was blunter: “This decision is not for Africa at all. It is for FIFA.”

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2027 next, then 2028, 2031, 2033

The 2027 Africa Cup of Nations will go ahead as planned in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. With the biennial cycle restored, the tournament will then return in 2028, 2031 and 2033, skipping 2030 to make way for the FIFA World Cup.

For Europe’s leading leagues, the ruling locks in the mid-season release of African internationals every two winters, the arrangement European clubs have long complained about.

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