Caf abandoned a proposed $1bn commercial deal after moving Afcon to four-year cycle, Guardian reveals

On 5 July 2025, on the eve of the delayed Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco, the Confederation of African Football abandoned a proposed commercial partnership worth at least $1bn after deciding to move the Africa Cup of Nations from a biennial to a four-year cycle, The Guardian reported on 7 August 2026. The change was confirmed by Caf’s executive committee in a unanimous vote on 20 December 2025 and Caf has not held a long-term commercial deal since 2019.

The decision followed a bidding process that had been approaching completion in 2025. Patrice Motsepe, Caf president, told The Guardian in Rabat on 5 July 2025 that, after prolonged discussion of the bidding process at an executive committee meeting, a decision on a winning bid would be made "in due course." The 2025 invitation to tender had bundled the entirety of Caf’s competition portfolio for sale.

Luxolo September, Caf’s head of communications, said the shift in Afcon’s frequency was wholly responsible for abandoning the 2025 bidding round. He stated: "As foreshadowed by the president in his comments last year, following the receipt and evaluation of bids and presentations from the bidders, in the second half of 2025, Caf entered into detailed discussions with shortlisted bidders regarding the precise terms and conditions of their proposals. "However, at its meeting on 20 December 2025, the Caf executive committee took a unanimous decision – in the interest of African football – to move the Afcon to a four-year cycle, bringing the competition into alignment with the international match calendar," September said.

September added that the executive committee decision changed the commercial landscape and prevented the 2025 process from continuing as launched: "This was a significant decision for African football. That executive committee decision materially changed the scope of the commercial rights available for tender, with the result that the 2025 ITT (Invitation To Tender) process could no longer proceed in its existing form."

It has been seven years since Caf had a long-term agreement to secure its financial future. The article notes the 2016-2028 billion-dollar "minimum guarantee" revenue contract with the French company Lagardère, signed during the tenure of the late Cameroonian president Issa Hayatou, was the first of its kind for the organisation.

Suketu Patel, then chair of Caf’s finance committee, described the background to that deal in 2019. "The Memorandum of Understanding with Lagardère was agreed by a team I led with Hicham [El Amrani, then Caf general secretary] in May 2015, in Zurich," Patel said. "On that same day, we met with Infront. Their indicative offer on the table was a $450m minimum guarantee for eight years, as opposed to the $1bn, for 12 years, from Lagardère. "If you look at our earlier contract of 2009, we had a minimum guarantee of $150m, but our income for the period was actually around $350m. We anticipated that the 12-year contract would have yielded about $1.3bn. "I can tell you that whilst President Hayatou and I had differences on political matters, we never had one on the management of Caf finances. He did not interfere with the processes established for good governance."

That Lagardère agreement was unilaterally terminated in December 2019 during the presidency of Ahmad Ahmad. A protracted legal dispute at the International Chamber of Commerce resulted in Caf, just over a year into Patrice Motsepe’s presidency, paying Lagardère a final settlement of $50m as compensation for the breach of contract, the article says, and that payment was made just before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. "There is no way that any sponsor will be prepared to pay the same amount of money for a deal in which you would normally have four Afcons over an eight-year period, when you will now only have two. That is certainly a no-brainer," said a former FA president with expertise in financial matters.

On 23 July Caf opened a fresh tender for the marketing and commercial rights of the 2028, 2032 and 2036 Africa Cup of Nations, with bidders given until 24 August to submit proposals, a process that replaces the abandoned 2025 ITT and represents the next confirmed commercial step for Caf.