Six Countries Have Been Banned From AFCON

Six countries have previously been banned from competing at the Africa Cup of Nations.

On December 21, the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations will kick off in Morocco when the hosts take on Comoros at Rabat's Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium.

Several of the biggest players in the world are set to compete in the tournament, including Achraf Hakimi, Mohamed Salah, Nicolas Jackson, Bryan Mbeumo and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

In total, 24 countries will compete at AFCON across six groups of four, with the final set to take place on Sunday, 18 January.

Thankfully this year, there were no teams that were banned from participating in the competition, but this hasn't always be the case as six different countries have previously been handed a ban from playing at AFCON.

Mohamed Salah is among some of the top players competing at AFCON. (Image: Visionhaus via Getty)

Morocco's decision to host AFCON this year comes after they previously were barred from the 2017 and 2019 AFCON tournaments after withdrawing from hosting in 2015.

The Atlas Lions pulled out of hosting the tournament due to the Ebola epidemic, with Equatorial Guinea stepping in at short notice to stage it.

Because of this, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) announced that Morocco would be fined $1million (£656,000) and were banned from the next two African Cup of Nations.

Perhaps the most famous AFCON ban came when the South African national team was expelled from all continental football due to the apartheid system.

Officially, South Africa were banned by FIFA for sixteen years and by CAF from 1958 to 1992, but faced forty years of effective suspension due to the apartheid system

For this reason, the South Africa national football team missed 18 tournaments missed due to apartheid.

(Image: Ahmed Awaad/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Most recently, both Zimbabwe and Kenya were banned from the 2023 AFCON qualifiers after their football federations were suspended because of governmental interference.

For the same reason, Sierra Leone were disqualified from the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign because of government interference in the country's football association.

The Chad national football team missed out on the same competition after they were banned for withdrawing from of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualification.