The Confederation of African Football (CAF) is the governing body for association football, beach soccer, and futsal in Africa. It was officially established on 8 February 1957 at the Grand Hotel in Khartoum, Sudan and today comprises 54 member associations. The foundation followed a decision made at the 1954 FIFA Congress in Bern, Switzerland, where Africa was formally recognised as a football confederation.
Representing the African confederation of FIFA, CAF organises runs and regulates national team and club continental competitions annually or biennially such as the Africa Cup of Nations and Women's Africa Cup of Nations, which they control the prize money and broadcast rights to. CAF has been allocated 9 spots at the FIFA World Cup from 2026 with an opportunity of a 10th spots through an intercontinental play-off involving 6 teams to decide the last 2 FIFA World Cup places (46+2).
The headquarters of CAF were originally located within the offices of the Sudanese Football Association in Khartoum, before being relocated to a site near Cairo, Egypt, following a fire. Youssef Mohamad served as the organisation’s first general secretary, and Abdel Aziz Abdallah Salem was its first president. The current president, Patrice Motsepe of South Africa, was first elected unopposed on 12 March 2021 in elections held in Rabat, Morocco.
Contents
Anthem
CAF launched a competition for all African composers to create its anthem without lyrics to reflect the cultural patrimony and the music of Africa on 18 September 2007.
Leadership
Sources:
Members and zones
A total of 54 member associations are part of the Confederation of African Football.
Members
Additionally, there are territories located in Africa which are not affiliated with CAF or any other confederation to any extent.
Mayotte
Chagos Islands (British Indian Ocean Territory)
Some African states with limited or no international recognition have official national teams, but none have been considered for CAF membership. Instead, they are affiliated with organisations such as CONIFA. Somaliland is not a member of CONIFA after leaving in 2010s and is a candidate to join FIFA after its recognition in the coming years.
Somaliland FIFA code: SMD
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
Competitions
International
Shortly after formation, CAF organised the Africa Cup of Nations (abbreviated AFCON) in 1957 and it has since become its flagship competition. Faced with undisclosed decline in popularity of local competitions and the mass exodus of homegrown footballers to Europe, Asia and the Americas in the 1990s and early 2000s, CAF launched the African Nations Championship (alternatively, though not widely used, the Championship of African Nations (CHAN)) on 11 September 2007 and began organisation two years later, to address this issue. CAF also organises qualification tournaments/competitions for the FIFA U-20 World Cup and the FIFA U-17 World Cup for its member associations; both of which initially began on a home-and-away two-legged basis but has since 1995 been organised in appointed host countries as respectively the Under-20 and U-17 Africa Cup of Nations.
For women's football operates competitions which currently serve as qualification tournaments for the related FIFA-organised tournaments which launched at the exact same year they began formation. The flagship African women's football competition/tournament is the Women's Africa Cup of Nations, which launched in 1991 as the African Women's Championship and was known in the mass media between 2015 and 2021 as the Africa/African Women/Women's Cup of Nations, which currently qualifies 4 teams to the FIFA Women's World Cup. CAF also organises qualification matches for "promising future female footballers" at both the Under-20 and Under-17 levels, launched in 2002 and 2008 respectively, both of which crowns no champions but instead qualifies 2 teams to compete at the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup and the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup respectively.
Club
For African clubs, CAF runs the CAF Men's and Women's Champions League, the CAF Confederation Cup, the CAF Super Cup and the African Schools Football Championship for both males and females. First held in 1964 as the African Cup of Champions Clubs (simply known sometimes as the African Cup) and rebranded in 1997 as the CAF Champions League, this football club competition currently features the champions of top-division leagues of CAF member associations and the runners-up teams of the league classifications of member associations the top 12 ranked national associations as documented by the CAF 5-year ranking system.
A currently-former competition, the African Cup Winners' Cup, commenced in 1975 for national cup winners of member associations and a third currently-former competition, the CAF Cup, launched in 1992 for African teams who finished below the top 2 positions of the league classifications of member associations and haven't met any criteria for qualification to any CAF competition. CAF decided to merge these two competitions together to form the current second-tier CAF Confederation Cup in 2004, and it currently incorporates the participation of national cup winners from the Cup Winners' Cup, whiles maintaining the format of the participation of teams who finished 3rd in the top-division league classifications of the 12 highest-ranked member associations as documented by the CAF 5-Year Ranking system from the CAF Cup. It is also ranked below the CAF Champions League.
The winners of the CAF Champions League play the winners of the African Cup Winners' Cup until 2004 and the CAF Confederation Cup thereafter in the CAF Super Cup which was launched in 1993.
The Afro-Asian Club Championship was an annual football match jointly organised between CAF and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) between the winners of the CAF Champions League and the winners of the AFC Champions League between 1987 and 1999.
The CAF Women's Champions League was announced and approved on 30 June 2020, launched on 12 September that year and began contesting the following year, i.e. 2021. It features women's national league and cup winners nvolving the champions of CAF's sub-confederation qualification tournaments for women's club teams.
Sponsorship
In October 2004, South African telecommunications giant, MTN, contracted a 4-year deal to sponsor CAF competitions worth US$12.5 million, which was the biggest sponsorship deal in African sporting history at that time.
CAF opened new sponsorship callouts when MTN's contract expired and French telecommunications giant Orange scooped it up in July 2009, signing an 8-year comprehensive long-term undisclosed deal to sponsor CAF competitions with a value of €100 million.
On 21 July 2016, French energy and petroleum giant, Total S.A., replaced Orange as the main sponsor with an 8-year sponsorship package from CAF for a value of €950 million to support its competitions. Total rebranded as TotalEnergies on 28 May 2021.
The current main CAF sponsors are:
1xBet
TikTok
TotalEnergies
Orange
FIFA World Rankings
Other rankings
Men's Futsal
Per 12 December 2025:
(*)= Provisional ranking (played at least 10 matches)
(**)= Inactive for more than 24 months
Beach soccer national teams
Rankings are calculated by Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW). Top ten, last updated 19 January 2026 Archived 23 October 2019 at the Wayback Machine
Major tournament records
Legend
1st – Champions
2nd – Runners-up
3rd – Third place
4th – Fourth place
QF – Quarter-finals (1934–1938, 1954–1970, and 1986–present: knockout round of 8)
R3 — Round 3 (2026–present: knockout round of 16)
R2 — Round 2 (1974–1978: second group stage, top 8; 1982: second group stage, top 12; 1986–2022: knockout round of 16; 2026–present: knockout round of 32)
R1 — Round 1 (1930, 1950–1970 and 1986–present: group stage; 1934–1938: knockout round of 16; 1974–1982: first group stage)
Q — Qualified for upcoming tournament
•• – Qualified but withdrew
• – Did not qualify
× – Did not enter / Withdrew / Banned
– Hosts
– Not affiliated in FIFA
For each tournament, the flag of the host country and the number of teams in each finals tournament (in brackets) are shown.
FIFA World Cup
Firsts
1934: Egypt first African team to qualify for the World Cup
1970: Morocco first African team to draw a match in the World Cup
1978: Tunisia first African team to win a match in the World Cup
1982: Algeria first African team to win two matches in the World Cup
1986: Algeria first African team to qualify for two consecutive World Cups
1986: Morocco first African team to reach the knockout stage (round of sixteen)
1990: Cameroon first African team to reach the knockout stage (quarter-finals)
1994 and 1998: Nigeria first African team to top a group stage and reach the knockout stage (round of 16) in two consecutive World Cups
2002: Senegal first African team to reach the knockout stage (quarter-finals) on their World Cup debut
2010: South Africa first African team to host the World Cup
2014: Algeria & Nigeria first African teams to reach the knockout stage (round of sixteen) simultaneously in the World Cup
2022: Morocco first African team to reach the knockout stage (semi-finals), taking fourth place
2026: Morocco first African team to reach the quarter-finals twice
CAF Golden Jubilee Best Players poll
In 2007, CAF published the list of top 30 African players who played in the last 50 year-period from 1957 to 2007, as part of the celebration of the golden jubilee or 50th anniversary of the foundation of CAF, ordered according to an online poll. The Internet users voted for Cameroon legend Roger Milla as the Best African Football Player for the period 1957-2007. In bold players who were active at the time.
CAF had initially programmed to publish, one player on daily basis from January 9 until February 8, 2007, date of creation of CAF.
International top goalscorers
As of 7 July 2026
This table is for players with 30 or more goals for a CAF national team. Players in bold are still active at international level.