2021 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations

2021 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations
كأس الأمم الأفريقية تحت 17 سنة 2021; Coupe d'Afrique des Nations U-17 2021;
Tournament details
Host country	Morocco
Dates	Cancelled
Teams	12 (from 1 confederation)
	← 2019 2023 →

The 2021 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations, known for sponsorship purposes as the 2021 Total U-17 Africa Cup of Nations, was planned to be the 14th edition (19th if editions of the tournament without hosts are included) of the biennial African youth football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for players aged 17 and below. Cameroon would have been the defending champions.

CAF announced Morocco as hosts of this edition in September 2018.^[1] This would have been the first edition of the tournament to feature 12 teams in the group stages instead of 8 from previous editions.^[2] The semi-finalists would have normally qualified for the 2021 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Peru as the CAF representatives. However, FIFA decided on 24 December 2020 to cancel that tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[3]

This edition of the tournament was originally scheduled to take place between 13 and 31 March 2021. However, CAF announced on 8 March 2021 that the tournament had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic both in Morocco and in Africa at large.^[4] Zambia offered to host the tournament at a later date to be agreed upon with CAF^[5]^[6] which never materialized.

Qualification

On 20 July 2017, CAF decided that the qualification format should be changed and split according to zones.^[7]

Player eligibility

Players born 1 January 2004 or later are eligible to participate in the competition.

Qualified teams

The following twelve teams qualified for the final tournament.

Note: All appearance statistics count only those since the introduction of final tournament in 1995.

Team	Zone	Appearance	Previous best performance
Morocco (hosts)	North Zone	3rd	Fourth place (2013)
Algeria	North Zone	2nd	Runners-up (2009)
Senegal	West A Zone	3rd	Group stage (2011, 2019)
Mali	West A Zone	9th	Champions (2015, (2017)
Nigeria	West B Zone	10th	Champions (2001, 2007)
Ivory Coast	West B Zone	6th	Champions (2013)
Tanzania	Central-East Zone	3rd	Group stage (2017, 2019)
Uganda	Central-East Zone	2nd	Group stage (2019)
Cameroon	Central Zone	8th	Champions (2003, 2019)
Congo	Central Zone	3rd	Third place (2011)
South Africa	South Zone	4th	Runners-up (2015)
Zambia	South Zone	2nd	Group stage (2015)

Draw

The draw of the group stage was held on 24 February 2021, 13:00 WAT (UTC+1).^[8] The 12 qualified teams were drawn into 3 groups of 4 teams.

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3
Morocco (H) Cameroon Nigeria	Tanzania Senegal Uganda	South Africa Algeria Ivory Coast Congo Mali Zambia

Group stage

The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals along with the two best 3rd placed teams.

Tiebreakers:

Teams are ranked according to the three points for a win system (3 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 or none for a loss) and if tied on points, the following tie-breaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 71):"U-17 AFCON Regulations" (PDF). CAFOnline.com. 20 October 2020. Retrieved 13 January 2021.

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 in WAT (UTC+1).^[9]

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Morocco (H)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2	Uganda	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	Zambia	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
4	Ivory Coast	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Source: ^{[citation needed]}
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
(H) Hosts

13 March 2021