The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has confirmed that Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania will co-host the 2024 TotalEnergies Africa Nations Championship (CHAN), scheduled to take place from February 1 to 28, 2025.
This move marks the first time these East African nations will jointly host the prestigious continental tournament, in which locally based players partake.
The qualification journey for CHAN 2024 is set to begin with the first round of qualifiers on the weekend of October 25-27, with return legs slated for November 1-3, 2024.
The second round of qualifiers will then be played on December 20-22 and December 27-29, 2024.
According to CAF, there will be qualification slots for the tournament based on geographical zones.
Zones WAFU A, WAFU B, UNAF, UNIFFAC, and COSAFA will each be represented by three teams.
However, the CECAFA zone, which includes Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, will receive an additional slot due to their automatic qualification as hosts.
This brings the total number of teams that will participate in the final tournament to 19.
Interestingly, CAF announced that despite their automatic qualification, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania will still compete in the qualifiers.
The best-performing team from the CECAFA zone qualifiers will secure an additional spot in the final tournament, adding a competitive edge to the qualification process.
The host stadiums and training venues across the three countries will be revealed in due course.
As of now, only Uganda’s Mandela National Stadium, Namboole and Tanzania’s Benjamin Mkapa National Stadium are the only stadiums approved by CAF in East Africa.
