The Women's Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) culminated with the unforgettable final in Rabat last month, when Nigeria completed "Mission X" by coming from behind to defeat hosts Morocco 3-2.
The fixture provided a glittering finale to a memorable if imperfect tournament, but it's fair to ask, with the confetti settled on the Super Falcons' glory, whether women's football in Africa is truly getting the support, the recognition and the treatment that the talent surely merits.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has stated lofty commitments to the woman's game, but can WAFCON already be considered an event worthy of those who play the sport across the continent?
Scheduling that prioritises the women's game
In recent years, there's been a nagging sense that WAFCON has been something of an afterthought for CAF, despite president Dr Patrice Motsepe's claims that the "development and promotion of women's football" would be one of the "priorities" of his tenure.
There has been notable progress, from the launch of the CAF Women's Champions League, to incentives and resources being put in place for men's clubs across the continent to develop their structures for women's football, and the increase in WAFCON prize money to $US1 million for the winners.
That represents a 100% increase from the 2022 edition, with CAF also outlining that 45% of the winners' pot is used to contribute to increasing the salaries of women's "players, coaches and employees" in the winning country. However, the prize money remains well behind the €5.1 million ($US5.89 million) reward England won for defeating Spain in the Euro 2025 final on Sunday, and even further behind the $US7 million Ivory Coast won as men's AFCON champions last year.
The increase is nonetheless well received, but is the big-money headline and a gleaming new trophy enough given the issues in the build-up to WAFCON?
After the 2020 WAFCON was cancelled amid the COVID-19 pandemic, CAF opted to move the 2022 edition -- also hosted by Morocco -- to a June-July schedule (rather than the traditional November-December program) to match the move made with the men's tournament.
That plan quickly ran into problems, however, as the schedule overlapped with the Olympic Games in Paris. Given that senior women's teams compete at the Olympics, and with two of the WAFCON favourites participating, the African showpiece had to be moved again.
Only last June -- just over a year before the competition -- did CAF announce the revised intention to host the competition in July 2025, three years after the previous edition; match venues were announced only on May 27 of this year, and the competition schedule was announced only at the start of June, a month before kick off.
Several teams commented during the tournament that the uncertainty in the build-up impacted their ability to hit top form.
"I don't want to make excuses, but we had more time in 2022 to prepare -- a lot more time," South Africa head coach Desiree Ellis told ESPN. "Our league started late, and so we had to rotate players to make sure they were fresh; we ended up with four out injured. We understand that that's how it goes, but it was different in 2022."
The rescheduled tournament took place over 21 days, and while this was the same period of time as in 2022, Ellis bemoaned a schedule that she said proved too demanding on the players and ultimately impacted the on-field spectacle.
Banyana Banyana, in particular, were disadvantaged by a tough program in which they played Nigeria in the semifinals in Casablanca on July 22, less than 72 hours after they'd finished their draining quarterfinal against Senegal, which they won in a penalty shootout, in the sapping heat of Oujda.
The team travelled on July 20 -- making the 609km trip on the morning after the match -- undertook pre-match training on July 21, then faced a Nigeria team, that had had an extra day's rest, on July 22.
"The Euros started three days before [WAFCON], and the final is on Sunday [a day after the WAFCON final]," Ellis said. "The normal recovery time should be 72 hours, if you want to have the best football in the latter stages; it needs another look... Fatigue sets in with games coming thick and fast; the legs are gone. If you want quality, you have to give the players a proper opportunity to recover."
Against Nigeria, Ellis had to introduce Hildah Magaia -- still recovering from a hamstring injury -- within the first half-hour after Tiisetso Makhubela was withdrawn with injury.
"We can't travel one day, have training the next, then have a semifinal," Eliis said. "It's impossible; impossible. The human body can only do so much. We have to take care of players first, because they're human beings.
"The Euros was more spaced out. OK, there were more teams, but they also have quarterfinal, semifinal and final. The WAFCON would be more interesting with the same spacing.
"Some teams are travelling more than others, and maybe that needs to change. We want quality at the backend [of the tournament] as well as in the beginning."
While the final was a particularly entertaining spectacle, it's worth noting that four of the last six matches at the tournament went to penalties, with teams running out of dynamism and vitality in demanding climate conditions and ultimately struggling to go through the gears and impose themselves on opponents as they may have liked.
Hot conditions for summer tournaments are not an Africa-exclusive problem -- just look at how conditions during the Club World Cup have raised concerns for the World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada next year -- but clearly Africa's climate conditions make this a particularly acute problem for the continent, with the added complexity of diverse climatic patterns across this vast landmass.
Ed Dove reacts to defending champions South Africa's 4-3 penalty defeat to Ghana to miss out on bronze at the Women's Africa Cup of Nations.
Facilities, logistics under the spotlight
South Africa were one of several teams, along with Nigeria and Congo DR, to bemoan what they deemed to be sub-standard accommodation and training facilities.
"Where we stay, we don't have a proper gym, we don't have a pool, but we have to deal with it," Ellis said. "These things should be criteria, but we know the things we face in Africa; we have to find solutions for it."
Ellis' experience was partly shared by Ghana head coach Kim Lars Björkegren, who also queried the tournament scheduling, while praising Morocco's hosting.
"The organisation has been really good, I think," Björkegren told ESPN. "With good pitches, we've felt safe the whole time, nothing to complain [about].
"Of course, for us to travel for the semifinal, I wish we could have had another day more there; I'm not sure if it's possible for the future. Otherwise, I have nothing to complain about. It's been a great experience."
While pitches and playing facilities were largely of a high standard, the tournament was perhaps a victim of Morocco's coming hosting of the men's AFCON later this year and the FIFA World Cup in 2030.
With the iconic Stade Mohammed V being renovated, matches in Casablanca were moved to the soulless Stade Larbi Zaouli in the Hay Mohammadi neighbourhood, while in Rabat building works on the new Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium meant that fixtures were played at the more modest Olympic Stadium.
Poor attendances beyond the hosts
CAF claimed "massive global broadcast demand" in WAFCON ahead of the tournament, but this was not matched by a generalised groundswell of enthusiasm in Morocco, notwithstanding games involving the hosts.
The hosts attracted capacity crowds, with final tickets available on CAF's official handle for as little as 0.78 Euros/$0.9 and 3.9 Euros/$4.50, although ESPN spoke to some supporters in attendance who confirmed that they'd paid approximately 19.06 Euros/$22 for their tickets on resale.
There was a 21,000-capacity crowd in attendance to witness Nigeria's stunning comeback against the hosts in the final, but uptake beyond Morocco's matches was meagre, with official supporters clubs that travelled to support their nations battling to create some semblance of energy in empty stadiums.
Match times, heat, financial realities (especially costs for travelling fans), and stadium logistics were understandable obstacles for the Moroccan public, but a general lack of awareness and enthusiasm on the ground could also be attributed to a commercial effort that failed to truly engage with local audiences, not giving them enough reason to turn out to watch players they didn't know from countries with which they had no connection.
Of course, there were billboards in Morocco advertising the tournament, but there was little visible attempt to create enthusiasm around the continent's star attractions beyond the Atlas Lionesses and the ubiquitous Fatima Tagnaout.
Nigeria's Ashleigh Plumptre expressed some disappointment with WAFCON's on-the-ground appeal when contrasting it with the Euros, which were played largely to packed houses across Switzerland, but Algeria's Ghoutia Karchouni had a different opinion.
"There's no value in comparing two different atmospheres and cultures," Karchouni told ESPN. "In Africa, we're beginning to have more and more keen interest in women's football in a general sense. CAF are trying their best to improve conditions and promote the tournament. We need to be patient and give them time."
This is not exclusively a Morocco problem, nor is it exclusively a WAFCON problem -- only 6,000 were in attendance at the 60,000-Alassane Ouattara Stadium in Abidjan last January for the Africa Cup of Nations decider between Mozambique and Ghana -- but CAF and the LOC need to define more effective strategies to tackle the obstacles listed above if they're to reduce the empty seats at international competitions and enhance the product as a whole.
Even if they do, Africa's sheer size and the logistical limitations of intracontinental travel mean comparisons with Europe can only illuminate so much. Of the teams participating at the Euros, the farthest any of their capitals was from Basel, the city that hosted the final, is 2,500km (Iceland). For context, all but four of the WAFCON qualifiers have capitals situated farther from Rabat than this, with Pretoria over 7,600km away from the Moroccan capital.
Ed Dove reacts to Morocco's performance in the Women's Africa Cup of Nations final vs. Nigeria.
How can federations find consistency?
One change that CAF will not be able to make ahead of the next tournament is to address the qualifying campaign, a straight knockout, which can often see some of the competition's would-be contenders miss out on the tournament proper.
Algeria and Cameroon have been pitted together on the road to 2026, as have Senegal and Ivory Coast, and the DRC and South Africa, all teams that could have harboured realistic hopes of reaching the knockout stages of the tournament -- also to be held in Morocco.
With the next WAFCON doubling up as a World Cup qualifying campaign, defeat for any of these teams in the October double-headers will see them miss two tournaments and leave them without competitive senior football until the qualifying campaign for the 2028 Olympics begins.
Tunisia were eliminated from both the 2026 WAFCON (and therefore the 2027 World Cup) before they'd even competed in this year's Nations Cup, and it's difficult to expect federations to maintain levels of domestic funding for the women's game in countries where there's no possibility of major tournament participation (and prize money) for another three years.
Even for the more successful nations in the competition, federation support remains an issue despite the platitudes.
Nigeria's players were each rewarded with a three-bedroom apartment in Abuja and the naira equivalent of $US100,000 (with technical and administrative teams receiving an apartment and half the amount of money), it ought not go unnoticed that head coach Justin Madugu (nor indeed 2022 WAFCON-winning head coach Ellis) reportedly had formal contract of employment heading into the tournament.
The rise of Zambia and Morocco in the women's game is testament to what national teams and their most talented players can achieve when federations begin to prioritise the domestic game and grassroots football with a long-term strategy and genuine commitment to growth rather than glib platitudes.
Without this, and without CAF working with Local Organising Committees to establish optimal conditions for an entertaining tournament, without a marketing strategy that truly engages supporters in the host country, then WAFCON might not keep pace with the immense African talent and enthusiasm that exists in the continent and beyond.