Qualification of Africa Cup Nations

Since 1962 the tournament, qualification matches have taken place to determine the participants for the final. From 1962 to 1990 the qualification matches of the rule on two legs are knockout ties with the number of rounds in the number of participants. From 1994 to the present day teams try to qualify are divided into groups, with teams on a round base.


Qualified by 2006, the defending champions Nigeria and host of the tournament automatically for the finals of 2008, considering only the hosts were automatic. The nature of the qualification groups varies from tournament to tournament.

Since 2008, the qualification consists of eleven groups of four teams and one group of three teams. Each group winner qualifies, with the three finalists with the best results. If teams for the World Cup to qualify the results of the classification also took into account the African Cup of Nations, usually go with the top three teams from each group qualifying for the finals would be to Africa Cup of Nations.

As the host country would also qualify for the World Cup, they would have the qualification for the World Cup to play, but where would be the final qualifying round results would not be considered in the championship, in the case of the African Cup of Nations. The next time this will happen in 2014 when the qualification will take place for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, it will also qualify for the African Cup of Nations Jamahiriya.