The CHAN 2022 will be the 7th edition of the biennial tournament organized by CAF. This year’s tournament will be held in Algeria, a country in North Africa, and will run from the 8th to the 13th of January, 2023.
Based on the meeting held on the 1st of August 2020 by the Algerian Football Federation, it has been confirmed that the CHAN 2022 will be held in five Venues across four cities in the country: Constantine, Annaba, Algiers, and Oran. For the tournament, 48 nations entered the draw and featured 18 teams instead of the 16 teams that CAF formerly slated.
Based on the information provided by CAF, the CHAN 2022 will have five groups: three groups will comprise four nations, while the remaining two will comprise three teams. CAF has also confirmed that the regional-based qualifying draw will run from the 22nd of July to the 2nd of September 2022. And the draw for the qualifier was held in Cairo, Egypt.
The seeding system for the CHAN 2022 was based on the result of the last three editions of CHAN, meaning Benin and Ghana were the lowest ranking sides and will face each other in the qualifier. Ghana has been slated to face Benin in the first round. And the aggregate winner of the round will go ahead to battle with Nigeria in a final round for the Western Zone B. But who do you think will face Nigeria? You can place a bet with Bet365 to turn up the heat!
The host Algeria, fellow North Africans Libya, and Morocco are already assured of spots at the tournament. Even Zimbabwe also got a spot in the draw. The draw committee placed Zimbabwe in the Southern Zone qualifiers despite being banned from global football by FIFA and thrown out of the African Cup of Nations qualifiers. CAF went further to explain that the condition for Zimbabwe to compete in the tournament is that their suspension has to be lifted not less than two weeks prior to their first match, or they will be eliminated from the competition.
In the Northern Zone, Egypt opted not to take part in the tournament while Tunisia were suspended after their late withdrawal from the 2020 qualifying campaign. In the Central East Zone, Kenye will not be included in the draw for yet another tournament due to the indefinite suspension imposed on them, while Eritrea opted not to enter as well. In the Southern Zone, Lesotho opted not to enter, while Namibia were part of CAF’s original draw, but they were not included in the final draw.
All qualifying ties are set to play over two legs, and the aggregate winners will progress in the tournament.