[2] Morocco was originally scheduled to host the 2015 edition, but withdrew due to fears stemming from the Western African Ebola virus epidemic.

[3] Due to FIFA expanding its Club World Cup competition to 32 teams and having it scheduled for June and July that year, this edition of the tournament will be played between 21 December 2025 and 18 January 2026.

[4] The situation has been further complicated by the addition of two extra match days scheduled for the last two weeks of January in the expanded Champions League that begins this season in Europe.

[5] That means the traditional window for Afcon from mid-January to mid-February (when the knockout stages of the Champions League are due to start) could cause even more disruption than usual.

[20] The eight involved national teams were seeded into two pots of four based on the FIFA World Rankings from 15 February 2024 ,[21] Seychelles and Eritrea were excluded from the qualifiers.

[22] The four winners: Chad, Eswatini, Liberia and South Sudan advanced to the group stage to join the 44 teams which entered directly.

Ghana, four-time African champions, failed to qualify after finishing bottom of the Group F, missing out on the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time since 2004.