CAF has formally announced the hosts and qualifier dates for the next edition of the Africa Nations Championship (CHAN).
African football's organising body has confirmed Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania as co-hosts for the next CHAN.
Read: AFL prize money set for big increase after Downs' R70m payday?
The tournament, which only allows locally-based players from respective nations to participate, will be played between 1 and 28 February 2025.
The three hosts of the competition have secured automatic qualification, and will be among the 19 participating nations from the respective CAF zones.
"Zones WAFU A, WAFU B, UNAF, UNIFFAC, and COSAFA will each have three qualifying teams. The CECAFA zone, which includes the three host countries, will receive an additional slot due to their automatic qualification as hosts," CAF confirmed in a statement on their official website.
As things stand, the venues for the matches are yet to be confirmed, but the dates for the first round of qualifiers have been confirmed to be the weekend of 25-27 October 2024 and 1-13 November 2024.
The following round of qualifiers will then be played before and after Christmas, on 20-22 December and 27-29 December 2024.
Despite being guaranteed spots at CHAN, hosts Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania will also participate in the qualifiers, while the team with the best result in the CECAFA qualifiers will also claim a place at the final tournament.
Read: Ex-France star begins new sports career after retirement
Notably, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania were also awarded the hosting rights for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations, which will be the first time in history that the showpiece will be hosted by three countries.
There has been only two other occasions when the AFCON was hosted by more than one nation, when Ghana and Nigeria joined hands in 2000, and this was repeated by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea in 2012.