Rights in the UK to the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), the continent’s top-tier national teams soccer competition, have been exclusively awarded to commercial broadcaster Channel 4.
The agreement, struck with African soccer’s CAF governing body, will see Channel 4 air all 52 matches during the tournament, which is taking place in Morocco across nine stadiums between December 21 and January 18, 2026.
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Channel 4’s coverage of the tournament will be produced by international sports marketing heavyweight IMG, CAF’s international media rights and sponsorship agency, and will be spread across its main linear channel, the E4 and 4Seven channels, Channel 4 Streaming, and its Channel 4 Sport YouTube channel.
CAF general secretary, Véron Mosengo-Omba, said: “The agreement between CAF and Channel 4 is historic in many ways, and it ensures that the Africa Cup of Nations Morocco 2025 will live in every household in the UK for the first time in the history of the competition.
“It affirms AFCON’s position as one of the prime and much sought-after assets in global football.”
It will be the first time the entire tournament will be available free-to-air in the UK, with the last edition in 2023 aired by UK pay-TV heavyweight Sky Sports alongside public-service broadcaster, the BBC.
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By GlobalDataThat edition was held between January and February 2024, having been postponed from mid-2023 due to adverse weather conditions in the host country, the Ivory Coast.
Along with Liverpool's Egyptian star Mohamed Salah, the 2025 edition is set to feature a host of other Premier League players including Manchester City’s Omar Marmoush (Egypt), Manchester United’s Bryan Mbeumo (Cameroon), Amad Diallo (Côte d'Ivoire) and Noussair Mazraoui (Morocco), Everton’s Senegalese duo Iliman Ndiaye and Idrissa Gueye, Fulham’s Alex Iwobi and Calvin Bassey, (Nigeria), West Ham defender Aaron Wan-Bissaka (DR Congo), Crystal Palace attacker Ismaila Sarr (Senegal) and Wolves defender Emmanuel Agbadou (Ivory Coast).
Last month, CAF awarded African pay-TV heavyweight SuperSport a wide swathe of rights to AFCON 2025, which became the holder of both English and local-language rights across sub-Saharan Africa.
The Tanzanian-based pay-TV broadcaster AzamTV then snapped up rights to the competition in nine markets, including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. All games will be shown live and in high definition.
The rights win for Channel 4 comes as AFCON continues to find a permanent slot on the international calendar, having been moved around to accommodate other FIFA-backed tournaments.
The 2025 AFCON was originally scheduled for mid-2025 but was pushed back six months due to a clash with the first edition of the expanded 32-team FIFA Club World Cup in the US, with FIFA prioritizing the new version as a commercially lucrative opportunity ahead of the country co-hosting the 2026 World Cup.
Morocco became a replacement host for this year’s edition, with the tournament originally given to Guinea before it was stripped of the rights in 2022 over serious concerns around security and infrastructure.
The 2027 edition of the biennial AFCON, meanwhile, is currently scheduled to take place across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
Meanwhile, CAF has announced a new deal with Japanese video game developer Konami covering the 2025 and 2027 AFCON tournaments.
As official gaming sponsor of the two editions, Konami secures exclusive gaming rights to recreate AFCON within its soccer video game eFootball franchise.
