African Nations Men’s Basketball Championship: Cameroon to host Zone IV qualifiers in March.

African basketball governing body, FIBA Africa, made the disclosure in a statement on its official website this week.

“The 2023 FIBA Africa's busy calendar is set to get underway when the FIBA AfroCan Qualifiers tip off later this month in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. From March 19-25, Cameroon's capital city of Yaounde will be home to Zone 4's AfroCan qualifiers,” FIBA Africa said in the statement unveiling the official calendar for the qualifying events.

According to the body, the Zone IV qualifiers will hold at the Yaounde Multipurpose Sports Complex, Cameroon’s most renowned indoor multipurpose sports venue.

Five countries in the Central African region; including host, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea will compete in this zone.

The five countries, FIBA Africa said, “will compete for a spot in the Final Round,”.

Cameroon will be competing in the qualifiers, with hopes of securing a ticket for a first ever participation at the AfroCan.

The Basketball Lions missed out on the maiden edition of the continental event four years ago.

Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo are the two nations which represented Zone 4 during the maiden edition of the competition in 2019 in Mali.

Crucial qualifying tourneys in other Zones

The qualifying tournament to the 2023 AfroCan will be held between February and June this year.

The first of the qualifying series will run from February 20-28 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

Five Zone 6 teams; Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia, will battle for the lone ticket for the 2023 AfroCan in the zone.

“Having teams like Malawi and South Africa involved in the FIBA AfroCan Qualifiers demonstrates our commitment to expand and engage with all countries in our region,” FIBA Africa Zone 6 Chairman, Paulo Madeira, said.

The Zone 5 of the series will be held in June, according to the sub-zone President Hesham El Hariri.

Giants like Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria and South Sudan will compete for just one available ticket in this zone.

Two other zonal qualifiers are expected to decide the representatives of countries from the East and West African sub regions.

The East African zone will have the likes of Rwanda, Ethiopia and Uganda challenging for a place in the final phase.

The West zonal qualifying series will have Nigeria, Mali, Ivory Coast and Guinea participating. All four countries featured in the inaugural edition of the competition.

In all, the first phase of the qualifiers will be played in eight zones with just the winner of each zone advancing to the next phase.

The eight qualified nations will join the semi-finalists of the maiden edition in 2019; Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Angola and Morocco to compete in the 2023 Africa Men’s Basketball Championsip, AfroCan.

The final phase of the 2023 competition will be held in a yet to be decided African country in the month of July.

A total of 12 teams will be battling to replace the Democratic Republic of Congo who emerged winners in 2019 after defeating Kenya in the final.

FIBA Africa’s innovation scheme

The FIBA AfroCan, also referred to as the African Nations’ Basketball Championship, is a national team competition organised for players based in Africa.

The competition is organised to further push for the development of the game in the continent.

The event launched in Mali in 2019, also falls under FIBA Africa’s competition revival systems which also brought about the now very popular Basketball Africa League, the BAL organised annually.

The introduction of AfroCan, led to multiple changes and shifts in African competition systems including Africa’s biggest national team competitions, the FIBA Africa Afrobasket.

The Afrobasket got its system changed from biennial to quadrennial.

The shift also led to the introduction of Basketball World Cup qualifying tournament.