AFCON 2025 gets new date: How will it affect African players in the Premier League and Europe?

The AFCON 2025 tournament will be hosted by Morocco while the 2027 edition will be hosted by three different countries in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

The 2025 CAF Africa Cup of Nations will be hosted by Morocco and will be the 35th edition of Africa’s biennial national men’s team football competition, but the date has been changed, Soccernet.ng reports.

Following the success of the AFCON 2023 tournament in Ivory Coast, the complaints of the humid weather conditions in the host country were taken into consideration, causing a change in the season where the competition falls.

According to Morocco World News, the AFCON 2025 tournament will be hosted by Egypt between July 20th and August 17th, across six cities. These cities include; Tangier, Rabat, Casablanca, Agadir, Marrakesh, and Fez.

Unlike the previous AFCON tournament which was moved to January 2024 to avoid the rainy season in Ivory Coast, the 2025 finals will be played during the northern hemisphere’s summer months.

How will it affect African players in the Premier League and Europe?

This news will come as a huge relief for club coaches and owners in European leagues. With the new schedule, Club CEOs like Bayer 04 Leverkusen’s Fernando Carro will have fewer reasons to complain due to his key players leaving to represent their nations in the middle of the season.

However, it will have a huge effect on the players. With the tournament set to start in July, most of these players will miss the pre-season games with their clubs, and possibly miss the first few league games of the 2025/2026 season.

This will also mean that African players will have little to no time to rest time. They might have a hard time settling into their club side after the tournament is over because they missed a huge chunk of training and gaining rhythm alongside their teammates.

Considering most clubs stray into the transfer market in the summer to buy players, the board of some clubs might be sceptical about making moves for African players out of fear of picking an injury in the competition. This might also be because fans won’t be able to see the signed players get into action for the club immediately.

N.B: We would, however, like to know your thoughts on this decision. Do you think the AFCON tournaments should remain in the summer or should they be held in January? Leave your comments below: