The Confederation of African Football (CAF) section of the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification saw teams compete for five berths in the final tournament in South Africa.

In total, 53 nations participated; however, due to the presence of the two tournaments' respective hosts, 52 teams were involved in each competition.

The 48 qualifiers (45 direct entrants plus 3 winners of the first round) were split into 12 groups of 4 teams each in the draw held in Durban, South Africa on 25 November 2007.

[7] Cameroon Nigeria Ivory Coast Morocco Ghana Tunisia Egypt Guinea Senegal Mali Angola Togo Zambia South Africa Cape Verde DR Congo Algeria Burkina Faso Benin Mozambique Libya Ethiopia Congo Zimbabwe Uganda Botswana Equatorial Guinea Tanzania Gabon Malawi Sudan Burundi Liberia Rwanda Eritrea Namibia Gambia Mauritania Kenya Chad Lesotho Mauritius Niger Swaziland Seychelles Sierra Leone Madagascar Djibouti

Ethiopia played four matches in this group, before FIFA announced the immediate suspension of the Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) on 29 July 2008.

[12] On 12 September 2008, FIFA excluded the EFF from the 2010 World Cup qualifiers and the results of their matches were cancelled.

[13] While it was not clear if they were also explicitly excluded from the 2010 African Cup of Nations, their failure to complete the remaining fixtures effectively eliminated them from the tournament.

[15] Chad was disqualified from the 2010 African Nations Cup qualifiers after failing to show up for their away match against Sudan, despite security guarantees.

Only matches between Mali, Sudan and Congo were taken into account for the qualification of the second round of the preliminaries of the African Cup of Nations.

[20] Cameroon (12) Egypt (22) Ghana (25) Nigeria (27) Ivory Coast (29) Guinea (41) Morocco (43) Tunisia (47) Mali (53) Algeria (56) Burkina Faso (63) Gabon (67) Zambia (70) Kenya (79) Benin (81) Rwanda (87) Togo (91) Mozambique (100) Sudan (106) Malawi (109)