Is AFCON a Better Tournament Than the Euros?

The biggest World Cup of all time is not the only major international tournament taking place in 2026.

Episode 35 of the Africa Cup of Nations, titled AFCON 2025, will contest its entire knockout stage in 2026, with only the group games taking place in 2025.

AFCON is a tournament that some fans of European clubs have a love-hate relationship with. Due to the tournament’s scheduling, many Premier League players involved in AFCON often miss multiple games for their clubs.

However, the Africa Cup of Nations is far more than just a problem for club managers to navigate. It is an elite competition with more history than the Euros.

But is AFCON a better tournament than the Euros?

Reasons AFCON is better than UEFA Euros

AFCON has more history

The Africa Cup of Nations was first held in February 1957, more than three years before the UEFA European Championship made its debut as the 1960 European Nations’ Cup.

Not including AFCON 2025, there have been twice as many Africa Cup of Nations tournaments as editions of the UEFA European Championship.

AFCON means more

The Euros are a huge event, but for most of the biggest teams involved they are very much secondary to the World Cup.

Of course, winning the World Cup is also the ultimate dream for any African team. But FIFA has only allocated five spaces for African teams at each of the past three World Cups, while Europe has had at least 13. As a result, there is no African team in the top 30 of the all-time World Cup league table recently compiled by FootballBlog.co.uk.

This imbalance is being partially addressed at the expanded 2026 World Cup, which will feature between nine and 10 African teams, depending on the outcome of DR Congo’s inter-confederation play-off final in March.

But the historical lack of opportunity for African nations at World Cups has helped make AFCON so much more meaningful.

Exactly half of the 24 teams heading to Morocco for AFCON 2025 have never qualified for a World Cup, while no African country has ever won the tournament.

Winning AFCON 2025 would be by far the biggest achievement in the careers of most players featuring in the tournament, while such a statement is slightly less true when it comes to the Euros.

AFCON is more open

There have been seven different champions across the last eight AFCONs. In comparison, Spain have won three of the past five Euros, while England have featured in each of the last two finals.

Generally, the Africa Cup of Nations feels like a more open contest — although Morocco will begin AFCON 2025 as strong favourites on home soil.

Last eight AFCON Finals

AFCON has better vibes

Both Europe and Africa — particularly North Africa — have issues with football hooliganism, but disorderly fan scenes are far more commonly associated with the Euros than the Africa Cup of Nations.

AFCON crowds are generally more vibrant than their European counterparts too. Africa is around three times bigger than Europe, meaning the pool of players and fans is far more diverse. AFCON is more than just a football tournament; it is a cultural celebration. The stands pulse with drums, dancing, colour, music and constant noise from kick-off to full-time. Even goalless draws feel alive.

Where the Euros can sometimes feel corporate, sanitised and over-controlled, AFCON feels more raw, emotional and authentic. Every match carries the weight of national pride, history and identity — not just sporting expectation.

In a footballing world that often feels overly commercialised and predictable, that authenticity might just be AFCON’s greatest strength.

Reasons UEFA Euros are better than AFCON

Euros are bigger

Over one million fans — 1,109,593 to be exact — attended the 52 matches at AFCON 2023, averaging out at 21,338 per game, with 57,094 at the final.

But the overall attendance at Euro 2024 was a whopping 2,681,288 over 51 games. That is an average of 52,574, while there were 65,600 inside Berlin’s Olympiastadion to see Spain beat England in the final.

More talent at Euros

The Africa Cup of Nations always plays host to plenty of incredible individual talents. AFCON 2025 will be no different. Mohamed Salah, who finished fourth in the 2025 Ballon d’Or rankings, will once again headline Egypt’s attack, while the world’s best full-back Achraf Hakimi is hoping to recover from injury in time to play for Morocco.

However, it is undeniable that the overall talent pool at the UEFA European Championship is generally much deeper. Europe has a far greater concentration of Ballon d’Or contenders and players from the world’s richest clubs. Even mid-tier nations at the Euros can field squads packed with players from the top leagues, giving the tournament a level of depth that AFCON — for all its star power — cannot consistently match.

More goals at Euros

Fans love goals and this is especially important at international tournaments, as such a huge percentage of the television audience will be neutrals.

The last five Euros have delivered 2.42 goals per game, while the last five AFCONs have witnessed just 2.07 per game.

Goals per game: Last five AFCONs vs last five Euros

So… is AFCON a better tournament than the Euros?

It is, ultimately, a matter of personal preference. But perception — particularly in England and across Europe — plays a far bigger role in that preference than many fans might care to admit.

That was laid bare by the controversy surrounding Jamie Carragher’s comments in early 2025, when he suggested that the Africa Cup of Nations was not viewed as a “major tournament” in the context of Ballon d’Or voting. His remarks, made while discussing Mohamed Salah’s chances of winning the award, sparked a fierce on-air debate and a much wider backlash.

But the reaction was not really about one pundit’s phrasing — it exposed a deeper, long-standing European-centric view of global football.

For many supporters in England, AFCON has traditionally been seen through a very narrow lens as a mid-season inconvenience that takes key players away from their Premier League clubs.

In contrast, the UEFA European Championship feels familiar, comfortable and rooted in the same footballing culture fans watch week in, week out. The players are household names, the stadiums are known, and the narrative arcs are familiar.

That comfort matters. People naturally gravitate towards what they recognise. But familiarity is not the same as superiority.

For all the Euros’ undeniable technical quality, much of the tournament can feel like an extension of the European club season — elite football, certainly, but played in the same countries, in the same cities, by the same faces audiences have been watching for ten months already.

AFCON, by contrast, offers a genuine change of rhythm. The football is different, the conditions are different, the atmosphere is different and the emotional stakes feel different too. National identity, regional pride and cultural expression sit at the heart of every match in a way that often feels more raw and visible than at the Euros.

Were many European fans to spend a week fully immersed at both tournaments — not just watching on television but experiencing the host cities, the crowds and the surrounding culture — their views might change significantly.

The Euros are slick, prestigious and packed with talent. AFCON is chaotic, emotional, colourful and deeply personal. One delivers refinement and certainty; the other delivers volatility and cultural intensity.