Moving the Africa Cup of Nations to a four-year cycle cost CAF a $1bn commercial deal
African football's governing body abandoned a near-complete bidding round after halving how often its flagship tournament runs. The replacement tender closes on 24 August.
Changing how often an event happens is not just a sporting decision — it is a change to the inventory being sold. The Confederation of African Football has just demonstrated how expensive that can be. According to a Guardian investigation published on 7 August, CAF walked away from a deal worth at least $1bn in secured income over eight years because it had decided to move the Africa Cup of Nations from a two-yearly to a four-yearly tournament.
The bidding round was close to done. CAF's head of communications, Luxolo September, confirmed to the Guardian that the frequency change was wholly responsible for abandoning it, and set out the sequence: bids were received and evaluated, CAF entered detailed discussions with shortlisted bidders on terms in the second half of 2025, and then on 20 December 2025 its executive committee voted unanimously to move the tournament to a four-year cycle, "bringing the competition into alignment with the international match calendar".
Half as many editions, a different thing to sell
The commercial logic is unforgiving. A rights package priced against four tournaments in eight years is not the same asset as one priced against eight, and no amount of goodwill closes that gap mid-negotiation. In July 2025, on the eve of the delayed Women's Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco, CAF president Patrice Motsepe was still talking publicly about "this $1bn partnership that we are looking at over the next eight years" and saying a winning bid would be chosen in due course. Five months later the executive committee changed the product underneath the sale.
Back to market, in pieces, with a deadline this month
CAF reopened the process on 23 July, four days after the World Cup final in New York, this time tendering the marketing and commercial rights for the 2028, 2032 and 2036 editions. Bidders have until 24 August to submit. The structure is notably different from the 2025 round, in which CAF bundled its entire competition portfolio into a single sale — a change that matters to anyone pricing the risk, because a narrower package concentrates the buyer's exposure in the tournament itself rather than spreading it across a calendar.
Why this lands beyond African football
Every rights holder that has ever discussed shifting a cycle — biennial to quadrennial, annual to biennial, or the reverse — is looking at the same trade. Fewer editions can raise the scarcity and quality of each one, and aligning with the international calendar removes a genuine scheduling headache for clubs and federations. But the money is contracted against volume, and the sponsors, broadcasters and agencies who staff and service these tournaments plan their own years around that volume. CAF has now been without a long-term commercial deal for seven years. The next edition of the Africa Cup of Nations is scheduled for June 2027, and the organisation is going into it with its commercial future decided by whatever arrives before the end of this month.
