AFCON Back to Two-Year Cycle! Why CAF is Abandoning Controversial Four-Year Proposal

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) is set to quickly abandon its proposal to hold the Africa Cup of Nations in four-year cycles just over 10 months since the decision was made.

CAF announced last December that it will move away from the tradition of having AFCON after every two years and adopt the Euro and World Cup-style of four-year cycles after 2028.

In the proposal, the upcoming AFCON 2027 in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania was to be followed by another one in 2028 after which the tournament would be staged after four years while there will be Nations League tournaments in between.

However, CAF president Patrice Motsepe has now revealed that discussions are ongoing over abandoning that move and returning to the tradition of AFCON being a biennial tournament.

“We took a decision as Africa and there were lots of issues but I can guarantee you that we have been discussing the last few days to say we are looking at everything, including having the AFCON coming back every two years,” Motsepe said during a CAF Strategy Conference in Cape Verde on Friday.

“There were all sorts of discussions and promises and we looked at it and said; ‘wow, this is interesting’,” Motsepe added on why CAF was convinced to abandon its tradition.

According to experts, CAF has been hit with the harsh reality that moving away from holding AFCON after two years would leave them in financial ruin.

AFCON remains CAF’s major revenue generator going by the numbers posted in the last two editions. In the 2023 tournament staged in Ivory, CAF generated between $75 million and $80 million in commercial and sponsorship revenue while the 2025 edition in Morocco brought in over $190 million, an increase of more than 90%, compared to the previous tournament.

Making these kinds of sums after two years means CAF would be on a sound financial footing and after failing to secure guarantees that the Nations League would bring in anything close to that, the Motsepe-led organisation has come to the realisation that it might struggle financially if the highly-controversial four-year AFCON proposal is implemented.