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The Confederation of African Football has said Nigeria’s male U-17 team, the Golden Eaglets have not qualified for the 2025 U-17 AFCON, which will be played from March 30 to April 19 in Morocco, The PUNCH reports.
This comes after speculations became widespread in recent days about the team’s chances despite missing out on the ticket during the WAFU B qualifiers last year in Ghana.
On Monday, CAF released some facts about the 25th edition of the tournament, which has now been expanded to a 16-team tournament but maintained the Eaglets are yet to book their place.
“Mali and Nigeria have each appeared at 10 finals tournaments since 1995, the most of any nation. That includes the 2025 edition in Morocco, which Mali have qualified for but Nigeria have not,” CAF noted on their website.
It remains to be seen if Nigeria might still get a chance to atone for their miss from the qualifiers, with only 10 teams still confirmed for the tournament ahead of the draw later this month.
So far, ten countries have already qualified for the biennial tournament: Egypt, Morocco, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Uganda, Angola, and Zambia.
In a statement released last week, CAF said its executive committee had approved the expansion of the tournament.
“The Executive Committee approved the new format of the TotalEnergies CAF U-17 Africa Cup of Nations (U-17 AFCON) Morocco 2025 qualifiers increasing the number of participating teams from 12 to 16,” CAF said last week.
As it stands, six additional teams will be selected to complete the 16-team lineup.
Nigeria finished third in the 2024 WAFU B U-17 Championship last year after defeating Ghana 3-2 in the third-place match. The first and second-placed teams, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, secured automatic spots.
The anticipation for an expanded tournament stemmed from FIFA’s recent decision at its Bangkok Congress to increase Africa’s U17 World Cup slots to 10 teams for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar.
With the global competition expanding to 48 teams, many believed CAF would adjust its qualification process to allow more African teams to compete.
The 2025 U-17 AFCON will be a qualifier for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar in November – a tournament Nigeria has won five times.
