The 2018 African Nations Championship qualification was a men's football competition which decided the participating teams of the 2018 African Nations Championship. Only national team players who were playing in their country's own domestic league were eligible to compete in the tournament.
A total of sixteen teams qualified to play in the final tournament.
Teams
A total of 48 (out of 54) CAF member national teams entered the qualifying rounds, split into zones according to their regional affiliations.[1]
Chad withdrew on 27 March 2016, but however, on 24 May 2016, Chad announced that they would not be able to qualify for CHAN 2018, and São Tomé and Príncipe officially entered the qualification, along with Equatorial Guinea.
Egypt were expected to withdraw from the CHAN 2018, but however, on 4 June 2016, it was announced that Egypt would participate in the CHAN 2018 qualification.
On 12 March 2017, the Football Association of Malawi announced their senior national football team would withdraw from the competition due to the lack of funding.[2] However, they later announced its reversal of this decision and would continue to compete.[3]
Kenya were the original hosts and would have qualified automatically. However, on 23 September 2017, the CAF decided to withdraw their hosting rights due to a lack of progress with preparations.[4][5]
Morocco were named as the new hosts on 14 October 2017.[6] Since they had already qualified in the North Zone, their spot in the final tournament was re-allocated to Egypt, which lost to Morocco in the North Zone final qualifying round.[7] However, Egypt declined to participate citing a "congested domestic calendar".[8] As a result, the spot was reverted to Central-East Zone (as originally three teams would participate including Kenya as original hosts), and would go to the winner of a play-off between Ethiopia and Rwanda, the two teams which lost in the Central-East Zone final qualifying round.[9]
The schedule of the qualifying rounds was as follows.[11]
Zone / Round
Matchday
Date
North Zone Central Zone
West A Zone West B Zone
Central-East Zone South Zone
—
—
First round
First leg
20–22 April 2017
Second leg
28–30 April 2017
—
First round
Second round
First leg
14–16 July 2017
Second leg
21–23 July 2017
First round
Second round
Third round
First leg
11–13 August 2017
Second leg
18–20 August 2017
Format
Qualification ties were played on a home-and-away two-legged basis. If the aggregate score was tied after the second leg, the away goals rule would be applied, and if still level, the penalty shoot-out would be used to determine the winner (no extra time would be played).[12]
North Zone
All four teams (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco) entered the first round.
^Libya played their home leg in Tunisia due to the Libyan Civil War.
^ abThe first leg between Senegal and Guinea was postponed to mid-week to avoid a clash with general assembly elections.[13] The second leg was also postponed to mid-week as a result. It was originally to be played on 22 August, but was postponed to the next day due to heavy rain.[14]
^ abThe first leg between Burundi and Sudan was postponed by a week to allow Sudan to travel to Burundi following the lifting of the suspension of the Sudan Football Association on 13 July.[18] The second leg was also postponed by a week as a result.
Sékou Amadou Camara (8 goals)
