Three-time champions and five-time runners-up, Nigeria are expected to know their opponents for the qualification race of the 35th Africa Cup of Nations finals on Thursday.
Johannesburg, South Africa will host the 2025 AFCON draw.
The Director of Communications at the Nigeria Football Federation, Ademola Olajire, disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja.
The SuperSport studio in South Africa’s commercial and economic capital will host the draw.
It will divide the 48 countries into 12 groups of four teams each, with the top two teams in eleven of the groups qualifying directly to the finals, scheduled for December 21, 2025, to January 18, 2026.
Morocco will qualify (no matter the position in which they finish) alongside one other team in the 12th group (which has host nation Morocco).
The qualifying matches will be played over the FIFA windows of September, October, and November this year.
All of Nigeria’s opponents in the ongoing 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying race—Benin Republic, Lesotho, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zimbabwe—are all in Thursday’s draw.
The following 48 teams are in the draw:
POT 1: Morocco, Senegal, Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Tunisia, Algeria, Cameroon, Mali, South Africa, DR Congo, Ghana
POT 2: Cape Verde, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Zambia, Benin Republic, Angola, Uganda, Namibia, Mozambique, and Madagascar
POT 3: Kenya, Mauritania, Congo, Tanzania, Guinea-Bissau, Libya, Comoros, Togo, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Malawi, and the and the Central African Republic
POT 4: Niger Republic, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, The Gambia, Burundi, Liberia, Ethiopia, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, South Sudan, and Chad.
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