{"id":121280,"date":"2026-03-30T13:29:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T13:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/all-news\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform"},"modified":"2026-03-30T13:42:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T13:42:48","slug":"afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform","title":{"rendered":"AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Rwanda. <\/strong><\/span>Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Patrice Motsepe has announced that the number of teams participating in the final phase of the Africa Cup of Nations will increase from 24 to 28.<\/p>\n<p>The expansion, which will take effect in 2028, was approved during a CAF Executive Committee meeting held in Cairo, Egypt, on Sunday, March 29.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAFCON will welcome four additional nations,\u201d Motsepe confirmed, without providing further details on the new format.<\/p>\n<p>The 2027 edition of AFCON will be co-hosted by Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.<\/p>\n<p>The expanded 28-team format will be introduced in 2028, after which the tournament is expected to return to its regular four-year cycle.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Rwanda<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Rwanda. Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Patrice Motsepe has announced that the number of teams participating in the final phase of the Africa Cup of Nations will increase from 24 to 28. The expansion, which will take effect in 2028, was approved during a CAF Executive Committee meeting held in Cairo, Egypt, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":121278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[3189,410,3507,758],"class_list":["post-121280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-caf","tag-patrice-motsepe","tag-rwanda"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform - Rwanda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Patrice Motsepe has announced that the number of teams participating i ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Patrice Motsepe has announced that the number of teams participating i ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rwanda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-03-30T13:29:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-30T13:42:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/sm_1774865551.803148.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"704\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-03-30T13:29:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-30T13:42:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform\"},\"wordCount\":121,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/sm_1774865551.803148.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Cup of Nations\",\"CAF\",\"Patrice Motsepe\",\"Rwanda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform\",\"name\":\"AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform - Rwanda\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/sm_1774865551.803148.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-03-30T13:29:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-30T13:42:48+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"description\":\"Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Patrice Motsepe has announced that the number of teams participating i ...\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/sm_1774865551.803148.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/sm_1774865551.803148.jpg\",\"width\":1000,\"height\":704,\"caption\":\"AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/\",\"name\":\"Rwanda\",\"description\":\"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\",\"name\":\"cfeditoren\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform - Rwanda","description":"Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Patrice Motsepe has announced that the number of teams participating i ...","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform","og_description":"Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Patrice Motsepe has announced that the number of teams participating i ...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform","og_site_name":"Rwanda","article_published_time":"2026-03-30T13:29:40+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-03-30T13:42:48+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":704,"url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/sm_1774865551.803148.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"cfeditoren","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"cfeditoren","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform"},"author":{"name":"cfeditoren","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"headline":"AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform","datePublished":"2026-03-30T13:29:40+00:00","dateModified":"2026-03-30T13:42:48+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform"},"wordCount":121,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/sm_1774865551.803148.jpg","keywords":["Africa Cup of Nations","CAF","Patrice Motsepe","Rwanda"],"articleSection":["all news","Sport"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform","name":"AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform - Rwanda","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/sm_1774865551.803148.jpg","datePublished":"2026-03-30T13:29:40+00:00","dateModified":"2026-03-30T13:42:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"description":"Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Patrice Motsepe has announced that the number of teams participating i ...","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/sm_1774865551.803148.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/sm_1774865551.803148.jpg","width":1000,"height":704,"caption":"AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afcon-expands-to-28-teams-in-major-caf-reform#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"AFCON expands to 28 teams in major CAF reform"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/","name":"Rwanda","description":"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb","name":"cfeditoren"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121281,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121280\/revisions\/121281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}