The 2021 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations, known for sponsorship purposes as the 2021 Total U-17 Africa Cup of Nations, was planned to be the 14th edition (19th if editions of the tournament without hosts are included) of the biennial African youth football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for players aged 17 and below. Cameroon would have been the defending champions.
CAF announced Morocco as hosts of this edition in September 2018.[1] This would have been the first edition of the tournament to feature 12 teams in the group stages instead of 8 from previous editions.[2] The semi-finalists would have normally qualified for the 2021 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Peru as the CAF representatives. However, FIFA decided on 24 December 2020 to cancel that tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[3]
This edition of the tournament was originally scheduled to take place between 13 and 31 March 2021. However, CAF announced on 8 March 2021 that the tournament had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic both in Morocco and in Africa at large.[4]Zambia offered to host the tournament at a later date to be agreed upon with CAF[5][6] which never materialized.
The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals along with the two best 3rd placed teams.
Tiebreakers:
Teams are ranked according to the three points for a win system (3 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 or none for a loss) and if tied on points, the following tie-breaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 71):"U-17 AFCON Regulations"(PDF). CAFOnline.com. 20 October 2020. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by a penalty shoot-out are counted as draws.
^"Decisions of CAF Executive Committee – 20 July 2017". CAFOnline.com. 20 July 2017. Archived from the original on 22 July 2017. Retrieved 20 July 2019. The Committee decided to organize zonal qualifiers for the Africa Cup of Nations for the youth categories (U-17, U-20, U-23), with the flexibility offered to each zone to propose a formula. The committee also resolved to strengthen medical checks in determining the eligibility of players.
