Golden Eaglets sensationally beat their Ghana counterparts 3-2 to win the third place at the WAFU B tournament on Tuesday, but they wouldn’t not be participating in the CAF U-17 Africa Cup of Nations.
Golden Eaglets coach Manu Garba was optimistic about taking his team into the tournament with a view of winning a FIFA U-17 World Cup ticket, but It was confirmed that the result against Ghana will not take his team anywhere as CAF’s Director of Competitions, Samson Adamu, confirmed the tournament will remain at 12 teams.
There was widespread anticipation among African football enthusiasts that the 2025 Africa U17 Cup of Nations would expand the number of participating teams.
This expectation was driven by FIFA’s recent announcement at its Congress in Bangkok, where it allocated 10 slots to Africa for the 2025 FIFA U17 World Cup, which will be hosted by Qatar.
Starting next year, Qatar will host five consecutive FIFA U17 World Cup tournaments, each featuring 48 teams.
Despite this expanded global format, the Africa U17 Cup of Nations will retain its current structure with only 12 teams competing.
“It is said that ten countries are going to represent Africa in the World Cup so I believe CAF will do well to take all the four teams from the WAFU B Zone that qualified for the semifinals. Why? WAFU B is the stronghold of African football when it comes to the youth level,” Manu said in Accra
“Like I said in one of the post-match press conferences, Nigeria is rated number one in the world at U17 level, followed by Brazil, then Ghana.
“We also have Ivory Coast who have won bronze. Even Niger, why shouldn’t CAF give us four slots from this zone.
“It is imperative for the WAFU officials to follow up on this. I can only imagine an AFCON without the likes of Ghana or Nigeria so that’s my plea to WAFU, to make sure they get four teams to the AFCON from this group.”
