The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations will welcome two new participants next March after Malawi and Cape Verde qualified for the first time. For Cape Verde, the island archipelago with a population of just over half a million people, it’s a double celebration after their men’s team qualified for the World Cup for the first time. The women’s team was only founded in 2018 and in seven years have enjoyed a rapid rise. As far as records show, no other team has progressed as quickly from formation to major tournament.
They will play in a field that includes hosts Morocco, 10-time champions Nigeria, Kenya and Burkina Faso, who have both qualified for just the second time in their history, and six other teams who were involved at the 2024 edition: Zambia, Tanzania, Algeria, Senegal, Ghana and 2022 champions South Africa, who required a 91st-minute winner against the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to confirm their spot.
Mexico-based striker Thembi Kgatlana, who missed the previous Wafcon for personal reasons, scored the winner after an earlier effort was ruled offside in what was not the only drama stalking the former champions. South Africa’s qualification has been marred by uncertainty over the future of their long-serving coach, Desiree Ellis, who has been in charge since 2018.
Ellis did not travel with the team to Kinshasa last week, where they drew 1-1 with DRC, was not at training for the return match and was seen sitting in the stands with South African Football Association officials for the second leg in Soweto. She has been out of contract since July 2024 and working on a month-to-month basis but was offered a four-year deal earlier this month. She has yet to sign the deal, with some clauses still to be agreed upon and it left Banyana Banyana without a head coach.
Ellis’s assistant, Thinasonke Mbuli, took charge and made her presence felt with a punchy assessment in the aftermath, in which she pointed to concerns with preparation as South Africa aim to reach a third successive World Cup.
The 2026 Wafcon is scheduled for March, by which time South Africa’s domestic league will not have restarted after its winter break. Mbuli fears the squad could go into the event cold. She urged the union to consider options including an earlier start and high-profile friendly opposition in the Fifa windows.
“There’s a window coming up now in November, the last Fifa window for the year. We are hoping that we can get a friendly match then,” Mbuli said. “We’re going to have to find a balance in terms of players going into an off-season, but also remaining active. Most of the teams in the league come to pre-season around the second week of January and they will have eight weeks before Wafcon. If we sit back and rely on teams to help us in terms of preparing the players, we might not do well in Morocco. I hope the league kicks off early so we go to preparation camp and players have had three or four games in terms of game minutes. But if we’re going to stick to the league kicking off in March, then the team must have an earlier camp to prepare.”
In fact, Mbuli is in favour of South Africa’s players actively seeking deals abroad anyway because she sees it as the only way for them to improve in the absence of a professional domestic league. “Let’s make an example of DR Congo – they have players that are playing abroad internationally,” she said. “Their striker Merveille Kanjinga plays for PSG. She’s not just signed by PSG. She’s a starter. If we talk about other teams around us, like Zambia or Malawi, you will see that their best players are not playing at home. Maybe now we must start looking at exporting our best players. The only way to close the gap while we are waiting for our league to be professional is to make sure that the players we have are not playing at home. Our best players must go abroad.”
Malawi is a standout example. Their two headline players are sisters Tabitha and Temwa Chawinga who play at Lyon and Kansas City Current. The pair have been playing outside the continent for the better part of the last decade and could have gone their entire careers without appearing at a continental cup. Now, they have the chance to qualify for a World Cup and for Mbuli, it’s the level that players of their calibre should be competing.
“I’m happy for the Chawinga sisters. They deserve to play in a Wafcon,” Mbuli said. “Malawi have some of the best players in Africa; be it Chawinga or the young ones from their under-20s. Again, what they’ve done well in terms of exporting their best players. If Tabitha can be on the list for the Ballon d’Or, it tells us how good she is. And you can’t be on the Ballon d’Or list and then you don’t play Wafcon. So it’s good for their profile, it’s good for their country and now it means all the best players from Africa will be in Wafcon. It’s going to be tough.”
The 2026 Wafcon will serve as qualification for the 2027 World Cup. All four semi-finalists will qualify for the tournament in Brazil.
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