The 2018 Total Women Africa Cup of Nations will be the 13th edition of the Africa Women Cup of Nations, the biennial international football championship organised by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for the women's national teams of Africa. The tournament will be held in Ghana,[1] from 17 November to 1 December 2018.[2]
In July 2016, Total has secured an eight-year sponsorship package from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to support 10 of its principal competitions.[3] Due to this sponsorship, the 2018 Women Africa Cup of Nations is named "2018 Total Women Africa Cup of Nations".
Bidding
There were no other associations bidding to host the event other than Ghana.[4] Ghana was de facto awarded the hosting rights on 27 September 2016 and officially in mid December.[5] It is the first time they host the women's event.
Ghana qualified automatically as hosts, while the remaining seven spots will be determined by the qualifying rounds, which will begin on 26 February 2018.[2]
Equatorial Guinea have been banned from the 2018 Africa Women Cup of Nations, meaning they are also in effect banned from qualifying for the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup.[6]
Qualified teams
The following eight teams qualified for the final tournament.
There will be matches in two stadiums. One is the University of Ghana stadium, a stadium in build since 2003 and which was completed for this event.[7]
Each squad can contain a maximum of 21 players.[8]
Draw
Procedure to be confirmed. The hosts will be seeded in Group A.[8]
Group stage
The top two teams of each group advance to the semi-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 71):[8]
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;
First match(es) will be played: November 2018. Source: CAF Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
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Knockout stage
In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner if necessary, except for the third place match where penalty shoot-out (no extra time) is used to decide the winner if necessary (Regulations Article 75).[8]
Ghana
