Africa Cup of Nations Africa Cup of Nations The CAF Africa Cup of Nations, officially CAN (), also referred to as AFCON, or Total Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons, is the main international association football competition in Africa. It is sanctioned by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and was first held in 1957. Since 1968, it has been held every two years. The title holders at the time of a FIFA Confederations Cup qualify for that competition. In 1957 there were only three participating nations: Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. South Africa was originally scheduled to compete, but were disqualified due to
Africa Beach Soccer Cup of Nations Cup finals. Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) originally organised the competition under the title "FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup CAF qualifier" (also known informally as the "CAF Beach Soccer Championship"). Despite historically having minimal input (often only sending delegates), CAF became lead organisers in 2015, establishing a qualification phase to determine the elite eight nations to compete in the tournament finals. CAF also began using the BSAFCON title to which the competition was officially renamed for the next edition, scheduled for 2017. However, CAF later announced that since three of its competitions were already held in odd-numbered years, the tournament would