On 6 August 2015, the CAF Executive Committee announced a tournament name change from theAfrican Women's Championship to theAfrican Women Cup of Nations, similar to the maleAfrica Cup of Nations.[3] However, CAF alternated this tournament's official logo between the original name and the new name, theWomen/Women's Africa Cup of Nations orWomen/Women's AFCON.
Hosts Cameroon qualified automatically, while the remaining seven spots were determined by the qualification rounds which took place in March and April 2016.
The following eight teams qualified for the group stage. Mali protested to CAF about Equatorial Guinea fielding an ineligible player in their qualifier; CAF thus disqualified the latter and had the former replace them at the group stage.[4]
The draw for the group stage took place at the Palais Polyvalent des Sports in Yaoundé on 18 September 2016 at 16:00WAT (UTC+1).[7] The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four.[8] For the draw, hosts Cameroon were seeded in position A1 and the defending champions Nigeria were seeded in position B1, with the remaining six teams seeded based on their results in the preceding three tournament editions.[9]
The fixtures were released on 3 November 2015.[10] The top two teams of each group advance to the semi-finals.
Tiebreakers
The teams are ranked according to thethree points for a win system; 3 for a win, 1 for a draw and none for a loss. If tied on points, the following tiebreakers are applied in the following order:[6]
Number of points obtained in games between the teams concerned;
Goals scored in games between the teams concerned;
If, after applying criteria 1 to 3 to several teams, two teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the two teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 7 apply;
At this stage, if a match has its scores level at the end of 90 minutes,extra time except for the third place match and followed, if necessary, bya penalty shoot-out[6]
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Nigeria (10th title)
Cameroon
Ghana
South Africa
Egypt
Kenya
Mali
Zimbabwe.JPG)
83'
