Speculations regarding the Golden Eaglets securing a spot in the 2025 U-17 AFCON in Morocco have been dashed, as the Confederation of African Football revealed its plans to finalize the slots for this year’s expanded tournament, overlooking Nigeria.
Scheduled to take place in Morocco from March 30 to April 19, 2025, the U-17 AFCON will also serve as a qualifier for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar, a tournament Nigeria has claimed five times.
Despite securing third place at in 2024 WAFU B U-17 Championship in Ghana, the Golden Eaglets fell short in the qualifiers, with Ivory Coast and winners Burkina Faso earning the automatic spots for the region.
CAF has allocated four slots for the expanded tournament to Gambia, which placed third in the WAFU Zone A qualifiers, Tunisia, and two countries from the CECAFA and COSAFA regions.
The remaining two spots in the 16-team competition will be filled by the top two finishers from the UNIFFAC region qualifiers, which will take place in Cameroon from February 16 to 28, as announced by CAF on Thursday.
Teams from Cameroon, Gabon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Congo will battle for the spots.
As of now, the Golden Eaglets have been left out of the expanded tournament, and will miss back-to-back FIFA U-17 World Cups.
This marks a significant setback for Nigeria’s age-grade football, as they also failed to qualify for the 2023 U-17 FIFA World Cup in Indonesia by finishing outside the top four at the U-17 AFCON in Algeria.
CAF’s executive committee confirmed the expansion of the tournament in a statement released last week.
The move was anticipated following FIFA’s recent decision at its Bangkok Congress to increase Africa’s U-17 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 had hoped that CAF would adjust its qualification process to allow more African teams to compete.
