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2026 African U-20 Women's World Cup qualification

The 2026 African U-20 Women's World Cup qualification is the 13th edition of the biennial African youth football competition organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to determine which African women's under-20 national teams qualify for the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup. Players born on or after 1 January 2006 are eligible to compete.

Four teams will qualify for the 2026 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in Poland as the CAF representatives.

Draw

The draw was held on 12 December 2024 at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.

  • First Round: The 12 lowest-ranked teams, based on previous U-20 Women's World Cup qualifiers performance, will contest in this round. The six winners will advance to join the 26 top-ranked teams exempted from the first round.
  • Second Round: The six first-round winners and 26 exempted teams will form 32 teams. These will battle it out for 16 spots in the third round.
  • Third Round: The remaining 16 teams will compete in a knockout format to determine the eight teams advancing to the fourth round.
  • Fourth Round: The final eight teams will play knockout ties, with the winners earning qualification to the 2026 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup.

Entrants

A total of 38 (out of 54) CAF member associations registered teams for the competition. The teams were seeded based on their performance in the previous qualifying campaign. The four lowest-ranked teams, along with eight associations that did not participate in the previous edition, entered the first round, which featured six ties. The winners of these ties advanced to the second round.

Qualification rankings

Draw pots

The teams were seeded into pots based on geographical distribution, with UNAF, UNIFFAC and WAFU placed in one pot and CECAFA and COSAFA in the other. Ties were drawn between teams from the same pot to minimize travel costs.

First round
Second round

Did not enter

The following associations have previously fielded or currently field a women's under-20 team but chose not to participate:

The following associations have never fielded a women's under-20 team and did not participate:

Format

Qualification ties were played on a home-and-away two-legged basis. If the aggregate score was tied after the second leg, the away goals rule would be applied, and if still tied, the penalty shoot-out (no extra time) would be used to determine the winner.

Schedule

Bracket

The four winners of the fourth round would qualify for the 2026 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup.

First round

Tunisia won 2–1 on aggregate.

Ivory Coast won 6–0 on aggregate.

Rwanda won 2–1 on aggregate.

South Sudan won 13–0 on aggregate.

Malawi won 4–2 on aggregate.

Second round

Cameroon won 18–0 on aggregate.

Botswana won 3–1 on aggregate.

Kenya won 5–1 on aggregate.

Tanzania won 7–0 on aggregate.

Ghana won 4–0 on aggregate.

South Africa won 9–0 on aggregate.

Uganda won 5–0 on aggregate.

Zambia won 4–1 on aggregate.

Ivory Coast won 6–4 on aggregate.

DR Congo won on walkover and advanced to the third round after Mali withdrew prior to the second leg following a 1–1 draw in the first leg.

Egypt won 3–1 on aggregate.

Benin won 9–4 on aggregate.

Nigeria won 5–0 on aggregate.

Senegal won 6–0 on aggregate.

Guinea-Bissau won on walkover and advanced to the third round after Congo withdrew prior to the first leg without giving any clarification on the reason.

Malawi won 3–1 on aggregate.

Third round

Cameroon won 5–1 on aggregate.

1–1 on aggregate. Tanzania won 3–1 on penalties.

Ghana won 3–2 on aggregate.

Uganda won 2–1 on aggregate.

Ivory Coast won 2–1 on aggregate.

Benin won 5–0 on aggregate.

Nigeria won 3–1 on aggregate.

Malawi won 6–2 on aggregate.

Fourth round

Qualified teams for FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup

The following four teams from CAF will qualify for the 2026 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in Poland.

<div id="1"><sup>1</sup> Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.</div>

Goalscorers

Notes

See also

References