{"id":21383,"date":"2025-12-19T11:04:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T09:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/soccer-fans-counting-hours-before-afcon-kick-off\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:32:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:32:27","slug":"soccer-fans-counting-hours-before-afcon-kick-off","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/soccer-fans-counting-hours-before-afcon-kick-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer fans counting hours before AFCON kick-off\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><span style=\"background-color: var(--global--color-background); color: var(--global--color-primary); font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Football lovers across the continent are counting the hours to the kick-off of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament in Morocco.<\/span><\/div>\n<div id=\"x_x_ms-outlook-mobile-body-separator-line\">\n<div>\nThe\u00a035th\u00a0edition of Africa&#8217;s flagship football tournament will be staged across the Christmas and New Year period for the first time ever.<\/div>\n<div>\nThis will also be a historical AFCON tournament for hosts Morocco,\u00a0who&#8217;ll host it for the first time since 1988 after the 2015 edition had to be rescheduled due to the Ebola outbreak.<br \/>\nAnd it now gives the hosts the opportunity to deliver it on a far bigger scale&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Morocco\u00a0has opened its doors to welcome 23 other African nations to its shores.<\/p>\n<p>This year&#8217;s AFCON tournament will showcase the continent&#8217;s best teams, world-class footballers, and millions of passionate supporters.<\/p><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21384,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,20],"class_list":["post-21383","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25075,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21383\/revisions\/25075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=21383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}