The 18th edition of the TotalEnergies CAF Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations is officially underway in Egypt, promising three weeks of thrilling football action from the continent’s rising stars.
Running from 27 April to 18 May 2025, this prestigious youth tournament not only crowns the champions of Africa at U-20 level but also serves as a direct qualification route to the FIFA U-20 World Cup Chile 2025, with four coveted spots available.
Here’s everything you need to know about the tournament
Host Nation and Venues
Egypt, three-time U-20 continental champions, was confirmed as the replacement host after Côte d’Ivoire withdrew earlier this year.
The matches are being staged across three cities — Cairo, Ismailia, and Suez — making use of four major stadiums:
Egypt has a strong record of organizing major continental tournaments and is expected to deliver yet another successful event, after recently hosting the senior AFCON in 2019 and the U-23 Africa Cup of Nations the same year.
Format and Group Stage
The 13 qualified teams have been divided into three groups — one of five teams (Group A) and two of four teams (Groups B and C).
The top two teams from each group, along with the two best third-placed teams, will progress to the quarter-finals. From there, a traditional knockout system will be followed.
The groups are:
All group-stage matches are played in a round-robin format, with three points for a win, one for a draw, and none for a loss.
In the event of tied points, head-to-head results, goal difference, goals scored, and even drawing of lots may come into play to determine rankings.
What’s at Stake
In addition to lifting the continental title, the stakes are incredibly high: the four semi-finalists will earn automatic qualification to the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile later this year.
Africa has traditionally performed strongly at U-20 World Cups, with Ghana winning in 2009 and Senegal finishing runners-up in 2023. The qualification battle in Egypt 2025 promises to be fierce.
The Qualified Teams
The tournament features a blend of seasoned campaigners and exciting debutants.
Notable qualifiers include:
Star Players to Watch
The TotalEnergies CAF U-20 Africa Cup of Nations has a rich tradition of unearthing future global stars. Legends such as Mohamed Salah, Samuel Eto’o, and Didier Drogba made their first mark at youth tournaments like this.
Key players expected to shine in Egypt 2025 include:
Defending Champions and Big Contenders
Senegal enters as defending champions, hoping to continue their recent dominance in African youth football. However, they will face stiff competition from Nigeria, Ghana, and hosts Egypt, all of whom have pedigree at this level.
South Africa and Morocco also present serious challenges, with strong squads capable of going deep into the tournament.
Egypt’s Preparation and Facilities
Egypt’s selection as host brings a guarantee of world-class organization. All four stadiums have been upgraded, and training facilities meet CAF’s highest standards.
Security, hospitality, and medical services have been prioritized, with fans expected to enjoy a safe and festive tournament atmosphere across Cairo, Ismailia, and Suez.
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Historical Background
The CAF U-20 Africa Cup of Nations has been played since 1979, originally as a home-and-away tournament before evolving into a full host-nation event from 1991.
The tournament has launched the careers of many African greats, and its importance in the footballing calendar cannot be overstated.
Previous winners include:
Key Dates
The final is set to be played at the Cairo International Stadium, one of Africa’s most iconic venues.
How to Follow the Action
Fans across Africa and beyond can follow the tournament live through CAF’s official broadcast partners including SuperSport, beIN Sports, Canal+, and on CAF TV’s YouTube channel.
Daily match reports, highlights, and exclusive interviews will also be available on CAFOnline.com and across CAF’s social media platforms.
Read the original article on CAF.
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As the G20 presiding nation, South Africa has an opportunity to champion issues relevant to emerging economies. One of these issues is government subsidisation of privately owned fossil fuel corporations.
Fossil fuel subsidies are paid when a government covers some of the costs involved in producing fossil fuel energy. This can be done by increasing the revenue received by oil, gas or coal companies, or lowering the price paid by consumers for fossil fuel based energy.
Fossil fuel subsidies may include tax breaks, low interest loans, and underpriced energy, all of which reduce costs for companies or consumers and encourage more fossil fuel use.
Some subsidies are explicit: when fuel is sold below its real supply cost or when producers receive financial support from the government. Others are implicit: when fuel prices don’t reflect the full environmental and health costs. For example, what the consumer pays for petrol excludes the cost of impacts like pollution.
Read more: Countries spend huge sums on fossil fuel subsidies – why they’re so hard to eliminate
African countries such as South Africa, Ethiopia and Morocco all subsidise fossil fuel companies. This can mean taking on debt, raising taxes, or cutting public spending to free up money for the subsidies. This hits low-income households, which rely on public services the most.
South Africa’s fossil fuel subsidies tripled from R39 billion (US$2.05 billion) in 2018 to R118 billion (US$6.2 billion) in 2023. Fossil fuel subsidies can occur for many reasons, such as making fuel more affordable for low-income households, to promote economic competitiveness or to attract industry. Yet the country wants to move away from fossil fuels, which have damaged local communities and the environment.
Read more: Vast subsidies keeping the fossil fuel industry afloat should be put to better use
I am an environmental scientist who researches emerging risks from fossil fuel pollution and how industrial risks are governed. My research, as well as work by others, shows that fossil fuel subsidies are associated with greater greenhouse gas emissions. Now there’s an opportunity for South Africa to do something about it at scale.
South Africa has set four key priorities for its 2025 G20 presidency. These are: strengthening disaster resilience; keeping debt levels down; mobilising the finance needed to move to renewable energy; and setting up green industries.
South Africa, as G20 president, should push for fossil fuel subsidies to be shifted into funding cleaner energy and climate adaptation.
This should be paired with strong support for clean energy investments and measures to retrain fossil fuel workers for sustainable, green economy jobs.
The cost of fossil fuel subsidies
The G20 is made up of 19 of the world’s largest economies, spanning both developed and developing nations, along with two regional blocs: the European Union and the African Union. Collectively, its members represent 85% of global gross domestic product, over 75% of international trade, and approximately two-thirds of the world’s population.
Developed countries are the largest historical contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. They’ve built their industries using fossil fuels.
Globally, fossil fuel subsidies amount to US$11 million every minute. Despite a commitment in 2009 to scale back subsidies, the G20 nations spent over US$1 trillion on them in 2023.
Read more: Fossil fuel subsidies cost Canadians a lot more money than the carbon tax
That’s despite the damage these pollutants have caused to the environment and their contribution to climate change. There is clear scientific evidence that phasing out these subsidies would save millions of lives fast, through reduced air pollution. Over the long term, it would save lives of people who would otherwise die in extreme weather events.
The world’s 20 largest fossil fuel companies have contributed to 35% of global emissions since 1965. Yet many have avoided financial accountability for the environmental damage they have caused. Subsidising fossil fuel companies also makes unsubsidised renewable energy less affordable. Developing countries then become locked in to high carbon (fossil fuel-based) pathways.
South Africa has a deep dependence on fossil fuels. Eskom, the state-owned power utility, relies on burning coal to generate electricity, which causes over 99.8% of its greenhouse gas emissions. Despite ambitious renewable energy goals, the country struggles to secure sufficient investment in clean energy projects. By advocating for an end to fossil fuel subsidies at the G20 level, South Africa can help level the playing field for renewables and address its own energy security challenges.
A commitment yet to be fulfilled
Ending fossil fuel subsidies is not a new idea. The International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Energy Agency, along with civil society advocacy groups, agree that phasing out these subsidies is essential.
The G20 nations pledged in 2009 to phase out fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption and undermine efforts to tackle climate change. But progress has been slow because of political resistance and lobbying by the fossil fuel industry. The result is that many of the G20 nations have not invested enough in renewable energy. They have continued to heavily subsidise fossil fuels.
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What South Africa can do as G20 president
Ending fossil fuel subsidies is not just about removing financial support. It is about using those resources better by redirecting the money to solar, wind and other renewable technologies.
As G20 president, South Africa should set up a working group or ministerial dialogue focused on subsidy reform. Forging coalitions with other emerging economies and civil society actors will build support.
Read more: Polluters must pay: how COP29 can make this a reality
South Africa can help reshape the global conversation to centre on economic justice and energy security.
As president it should encourage G20 members to adopt clear, actionable renewable energy transition plans that safeguard workers (like coal and oil workers) and communities who will be left worse off when fossil fuel subsidies end and their industries close down. This will ensure a just and inclusive move towards a cleaner energy future.
Llewellyn Leonard, Professor of Environmental Science, University of South Africa
This article is republished from The Conversation Africa under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
AllAfrica publishes around 500 reports a day from more than 110 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.
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The latest tensions are a wake-up call for the AU, which has lost influence in the Sahel-Saharan region.
The current diplomatic crisis between Algeria and the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) presents recently elected African Union Commission leaders with an opportunity to mediate and regain the organisation’s standing in a region crucial to Africa’s security.
The dispute originates from a clash between Algeria and Mali over the destruction of a Malian drone by Algeria’s army on 1 April on the border at Tinzaouaten. Algeria says the drone crossed its border; Mali says the aircraft was in its own territory.
Diplomatic relations between the two, which date back to 1960, have often been turbulent due to the issue of northern Mali’s successive separatist movements. However, this is the first time that Mali has denounced Algeria’s military aggression and referred the matter to the United Nations Security Council.
The crisis has also taken on a regional dimension, given the political, diplomatic and military alliance formed by the AES Confederation (comprising Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali). Niger and Burkina Faso have shown their solidarity with Mali by recalling their ambassadors to Algiers, as has Mali. Mali and Niger have also withdrawn from the Comité d’Etat-Major Opérationnel Conjoint (CEMOC), which had brought them together with Algeria and Mauritania’s military forces.
CEMOC has not been very active since its creation in 2010, but it provided some security coordination and a useful cooperation framework, with Algeria especially providing training support.
The vast stretches of desert comprising these countries’ border regions are prime transit routes for arms, drugs and migrants. These areas are largely unsupervised, especially by Mali and Niger’s security forces, making them sanctuaries for armed bandits, terrorists or separatist groups.
Given that Algeria’s military capabilities are unrivalled in the region, the risk of armed conflict seems minimal at this stage. Nevertheless, the inter-state tensions could destabilise the buffer zone between the Maghreb and West Africa – an area already weakened by Libya’s civil war and neighbouring countries’ insecurity.
This new crisis should be a wake-up call for the AU. The withdrawal of AES countries from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in January means that the regional bloc lacks the legal standing and legitimacy to mediate the crisis. This poses an unprecedented challenge to the AU’s peace and security architecture and subsidiarity principle, which relies on regional bodies like ECOWAS to initiate conflict prevention actions.
The AU must use the appropriate channels to rapidly re-establish dialogue and pave the way for a return to constructive relations between Algeria and the AES countries. Its Peace and Security Council should focus on the northern Mali issue, which is at the root of the dispute between Algiers and Bamako.
Mali has accused Algeria in recent months of serving as a rear base for the separatist Front de Liberation de l’Azawad (FLA), after hostilities between the group and Bamako resumed when the government recaptured Kidal in November 2023.
Shortly thereafter, Malian authorities ended the 2015 Algiers Accord, which had failed to bring peace with the separatists. Fighting resumed, with northern Mali’s Tinzaouaten region becoming the flashpoint of the conflict. In July 2024, Mali’s army, backed by Russia’s Africa Corps, suffered heavy losses when they were ambushed by the rebels.
The current environment presents an opportunity for the AU to regain influence in the Sahel. The organisation has been sidelined over the years for numerous reasons. One is its competition with ECOWAS for leadership in managing the 2012-13 Malian crisis, which ultimately led to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali’s (MINUSMA) African contingents being placed under UN control.
The AU was also marginalised by France’s activism in the Sahel and backing of the G5 Sahel as an alternative to the AU’s Nouakchott Process launched in 2013. The initiative aimed to strengthen security and counter-terrorism coordination between Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal. Successful mediation between Algeria and the AES countries could even help to revitalise this process down the line.
The AU is now well placed to fill the leadership vacuum left by the withdrawal of Western powers and MINUSMA, the disintegration of the G5 Sahel, including its Joint Force, and the sidelining of ECOWAS.
The AU should seek to achieve three objectives. First, bring Algeria and the AES Confederation together through mediation. Second, promote a new wholly African political solution to the northern Mali crisis. And third, relaunch continental efforts to combat terrorism by revitalising the Nouakchott Process at a later date.
There are several assets the AU can use to achieve these aims. It could leverage Angola and South Africa’s excellent historical relations with both Mali and Algeria. Likewise, the AU Commission’s new Chairman, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, has many contacts in African diplomatic circles. Countries like Mauritania – a CEMOC member that has cordial relations with the AES countries – and Chad, with its ties to both parties could also help.
Outside the continent, the AU could informally approach Russia to facilitate. Moscow has long-standing diplomatic relations with Mali and Algeria, and is the AES countries’ main military partner. It is also a strategic partner of Algeria – the third largest importer of Russian weapons globally, and the largest in Africa.
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However, to succeed, the AU’s new leadership must assess the political and security threats facing West Africa, and reposition itself at the centre of responses.
While the conflicts in Somalia, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are also emergencies, the Sahel cannot wait. The AU should rethink its wait-and-see attitude of recent years, a posture illustrated by the vacancy of the position of High Representative and Head of the AU Mission for Mali and the Sahel (MISAHEL) since August 2023.
Beyond the current crisis, the new AU Commission chair should appoint a High Representative and bolster MISAHEL’s mandate to provide it with the means and flexibility to operate effectively and constructively in a volatile geopolitical environment.
Hassane Koné, Senior Researcher, ISS Regional Office for West Africa and the Sahel
Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné, Project Manager, Sahel, ISS Regional Office for West Africa and the Sahel
Djiby Sow, Senior Researcher, ISS Regional Office for West Africa and the Sahel
Read the original article on ISS.
AllAfrica publishes around 500 reports a day from more than 110 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.
Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.
AllAfrica is a voice of, by and about Africa – aggregating, producing and distributing 500 news and information items daily from over 110 African news organizations and our own reporters to an African and global public. We operate from Cape Town, Dakar, Abuja, Johannesburg, Nairobi and Washington DC.
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