said that Cameroon had agreed to host the 2021 tournament instead. Consequently, Ivory Coast, original hosts of 2021, will host the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, and Guinea, original hosts of 2023, will host the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations. On 30 January 2019, the CAF President confirmed the timetable shift, after a meeting with Ivory Coast President, Alassane Ouattara, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic The tournament was originally scheduled to take place between 9 January and 6 February 2021. The preliminary round and two matchdays of the qualifying group stage had already been played between 9 October and 19 November 2019. The third and fourth matchdays of the qualifying group stage, which were initially scheduled to take place from 23 to 31 March and 1 to 9 June 2020 respectively, were postponed and all remaining qualifying matches rescheduled due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. On 19 June 2020, the CAF stated it was undecided about when continental competitions would resume, and were prioritising new schedules for the 2019–20 CAF Champions League and the 2019–20 CAF Confederation Cup semi-finals, the postponed 2020 African Nations Championship and the 2020 Africa Women Cup of Nations, alongside the 2021 Africa Cup of Nation, as football competitions across the continent had been postponed, cancelled or suspended. On 30 June 2020, however, the CAF announced the rescheduling of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations to January 2022 "after consultation with stakeholders and taking into consideration the current global situation" according to a published statement, with new dates to be announced at a later date. Subsequently, other continental competitions and events to be held were rescheduled or cancelled, including new dates for the remaining AFCON qualifiers, which were now to be completed by March 2021. On 31 March 2021, it was confirmed that the final tournament would take place from 9 January to 6 February 2022, exactly one year after its originally scheduled start date. Qualification Qualified teams The following teams qualified for the tournament. Format A total of 24 teams competed in the final tournament. Only the hosts received an automatic qualification spot, with the other 23 teams qualifying through a qualification tournament. For the finals, the 24 teams were drawn into six groups of four teams. The teams in each group played a single round robin, and after the group stage, the top two teams from