2018 African Nations Championship

2018 African Nations Championship
بطولة أمم أفريقيا للمحليين 2018; 2018 CHAN
Tournament details
Host country	Morocco
Dates	13 January – 4 February 2018
Teams	16 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	4 (in 4 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Morocco (1st title)
Runners-up	Nigeria
Third place	Sudan
Fourth place	Libya
Tournament statistics
Matches played	32
Goals scored	58 (1.81 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Ayoub El Kaabi (9 goals)
Best player(s)	Ayoub El Kaabi
Fair play award	Morocco

The 2018 African Nations Championship, known as the Total African Nations Championship (also referred to as CHAN 2018) was the 5th edition of the African Nations Championship, a biennial football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) exclusively featuring players from the respective national championships. It took place between 12 January and 4 February 2018. In February 2016, Kenya was announced as the host nation but in September 2017, CAF decided to change the host nation due to a lack of progress with preparations.[1][2] Morocco was announced as the host nation in October 2017.[3]

Unlike the African Cup of Nations, the competing national teams must be composed of players playing in their domestic league. For example, a Moroccan player is only eligible to play for the Morocco national team if he is playing for a Moroccan club.[4]

Hosts Morocco defeated Nigeria in the final to win their first title. DR Congo were the defending champions but failed to qualify for the first time ever after losing to Congo on away goals rule.

Host selection

Initially, Kenya was announced as the host nation in February 2016. But in September 2017, CAF decided to change the host nation due to a lack of progress with preparations.[5]

The CAF received three bids by the deadline of 30 September 2017 to replace Kenya as new hosts:[6]

The Ethiopian Football Federation did not provide the government's letter of guarantee, and were not considered. The CAF Emergency Committee decided to choose Morocco over Equatorial Guinea in October 2017.[7]

Qualification

The qualifying rounds took place from April to August 2017.[8]

Since Morocco had already qualified in the North Zone before being named as replacement hosts, their spot in the final tournament was re-allocated to Egypt, which lost to Morocco in the North Zone final qualifying round.[9] However, Egypt declined to participate citing a "congested domestic calendar".[10] 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 in November 2017 between Ethiopia and Rwanda, the two teams which lost in the Central-East Zone final qualifying round.[11]

Qualified teams

The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.

Team	Zone	Appearance	Previous best performance	FIFA ranking at start of event
Cameroon	Central Zone	3rd	Quarter-finals (2011, 2016)	45
Congo		2nd	Group stage (2014)	96
Equatorial Guinea		1st	Debut	146
Rwanda	Central-East Zone	3rd	Quarter-finals (2016)	113
Sudan		2nd	Third place (2011)	136
Uganda		4th	Group stage (2011, 2014, 2016)	75
Libya	North Zone	3rd	Champions (2014)	88
Morocco (hosts)	North Zone	3rd	Quarter-finals (2014)	40
Angola	South Zone	3rd	Runners-up (2011)	141
Namibia		1st	Debut	118
Zambia		3rd	Third place (2009)	74
Guinea	West A Zone	2nd	Fourth place (2016)	65
Mauritania	West A Zone	2nd	Group stage (2014)	99
Burkina Faso	West B Zone	2nd	Group stage (2014)	44
Ivory Coast		4th	Third place (2016)	61
Nigeria		3rd	Third place (2014)	51

Venues

Matches were held in Casablanca, Marrakech, Agadir and Tangier.

Casablanca	Casablanca Agadir Marrakesh Tangier	Marrakesh
Stade Mohamed V		Stade de Marrakech
Capacity: 45,600		Capacity: 45,240

Tangier		Agadir
Stade Ibn Batouta		Stade Adrar
Capacity: 45,000		Capacity: 45,480

Before their hosting rights were withdrawn, Football Kenya Federation planned to use four stadiums as competition venues.[12] However, only Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi and Kasarani Stadium in Kasarani were considered to meet hosting requirements after CAF inspection, while Mombasa Municipal Stadium in Mombasa and Kinoru Stadium in Meru did not.[13]

Squads

Each squad can contain a maximum of 23 players (Regulations Article 72).[14] The finalized squads were announced by the CAF on 10 January 2018.[15][16] Players must play for clubs in their home country.

Match officials

A total of 32 match officials (16 referees and 16 assistant referees) were selected for the tournament. In addition, seven match official were selected to operate the video assistant referee (VAR) system starting from the quarter-finals, a first in African competitions.[17][18][19]

Draw

The draw of the final tournament was held on 17 November 2017, 19:30 WET (UTC±0), at Sofitel Rabat in Rabat, Morocco.[20]

The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams.[21] The hosts Morocco were seeded in Group A. The remaining teams were seeded based on their results in the four most recent final tournaments: 2009 (multiplied by 1), 2011 (multiplied by 2), 2014 (multiplied by 3), 2016 (multiplied by 4):[22][23][24]

7 points for winner
5 points for runner-up
3 points for semi-finalists
2 points for quarter-finalists
1 point for group stage

Based on the formula above, the four pots were allocated as follows:

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
Morocco (hosts) (10 pts) Libya (22 pts) Ivory Coast (15 pts) Angola (14 pts)	Nigeria (13 pts) Guinea (12 pts) Cameroon (12 pts) Zambia (11 pts)	Rwanda (10 pts) Uganda (9 pts) Sudan (6 pts) Congo (3 pts)	Burkina Faso (3 pts) Mauritania (3 pts) Namibia (0 pts) Equatorial Guinea (0 pts)

Group stage

The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals.

Tiebreakers

Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 74):[14]

Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Drawing of lots.

All times are local, WET (UTC±0).[25]

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Morocco (H)	3	2	1	0	7	1	+6	7	Knockout stage
2	Sudan	3	2	1	0	3	1	+2	7	Knockout stage
3	Guinea	3	1	0	2	3	5	−2	3
4	Mauritania	3	0	0	3	0	6	−6	0

Source: CAF
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
(H) Host.

13 January 2018