The 2023 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations known as the TotalEnergies U-17 Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship purposes or 2023 U17 AFCON for short was the 14th edition (19th if editions without hosts are included) of the biennial African youth football tournament organized by Confederation of African Football (CAF) for players aged 17 and below and the first to feature 12 teams in the group stage instead of 8.
Algeria was chosen as hosts of this edition on 15 May 2021 which it organized from 29 April to 19 May. All four semi-finalists qualified for the 2023 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Indonesia as the CAF representatives.
Cameroon were the defending champions but were eliminated in the group stage after losses to Burkina Faso and to Mali. Senegal won their inaugural title, defeating hosts of the cancelled 2021 edition Morocco 2âÂÂ1 in the final.
The CAF decided on 20 July 2017 that the qualification format should be changed and split according to zones.
Players born on 1 January 2006 or later were eligible to participate in this edition of the tournament.
The following twelve teams qualified for the group stages. However, South Sudan was disqualified from this edition of the tournament after 5 of its players failed the MRI test.
Note: All appearance statistics count only those since the introduction of the group stages in 1995.
The Algerian Football Federation choose three venues in three cities across the host nation Algeria for hosting this edition of the competition: Algiers, Annaba and Constantine.
The group stage draw was conducted on 1 February 2023 at 12:00 WET () at the Cercle National de l'Armée in Algiers, the capital city of hosts Algeria. The 12 teams were drawn into 3 groups of 4 teams. As hosts, Algeria was seeded in Group A and allocated to position A1, while 2019 champions Cameroon was seeded in Group C and allocated to position C1 and 4th-place-finished team also from the 2019 edition Nigeria was seeded in Group B and allocated to position B1; the remaining nine teams were seeded based on their results in the previous valid edition in 2019.
Teams were ranked according to the three points for a win (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 were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 13):
All times are local, WAT and CET ().
With South Sudan's disqualification, rankings against the fourth-placed team of group A and B were not counted.
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Winners qualified for the 2023 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Indonesia.
The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:
The following teams from CAF qualified for the 2023 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Indonesia.