The Confederation of African Football has abandoned plans to stage the Africa Cup of Nations every four years, restoring the tournament’s traditional two-year cycle following a review of the proposal.

CAF President, Patrice Motsepe, said the reversal was aimed at “advancing, protecting and promoting” the interests of African football.

The decision comes about 10 months after Motsepe announced that the continent’s flagship national team competition would move to a four-year cycle from 2028.

CAF consulted its 54 member associations on whether to proceed with the change or retain the biennial format before its executive committee voted to restore the existing arrangement.

Motsepe acknowledged concerns that the proposed Africa Nations League, intended to help diversify CAF’s income, would require “several years” before making “the substantial financial and football development contributions” needed to help African football become self-supporting.

AFCON remains CAF’s biggest revenue generator, with a profit of $114m forecast for the 2025 tournament in Morocco, compared with $75m from the previous edition in Ivory Coast.

The proposed change had drawn criticism over its financial implications and the process through which it was approved.

CAF’s executive committee adopted the four-year plan last December without first presenting it to a general assembly, where all member associations are represented.

An official of the Football Association of Zambia, Sydney Mungala, said the announcement surprised many national federations.

“I think the general sentiment around the continent has been that the two-year cycle has served the continent very well,” Mungala told the BBC.

“The idea of pushing it to a four-year cycle was a bit of a surprise, maybe a concern, to the bulk of the African federations.”

Algerian journalist, Maher Mezahi, also questioned the decision-making process, arguing that a change of such significance required wider consultation.

“These kinds of decisions should be put to the general assembly; they should be debated and discussed for months at a time,” he told the BBC.

“AFCON is the locomotive by which CAF funds all of its other competitions.”

The first indication that CAF was reconsidering the proposal emerged at its strategy conference in Cape Verde earlier this month.

Motsepe had announced the planned switch on the eve of the 2025 finals in Morocco, saying it would help make the global football calendar “significantly more synchronised and harmonised”.

AFCON’s scheduling during the European club season has repeatedly triggered disputes over the release of African players.

FIFA General Secretary, Mattias Grafstrom, was alongside Motsepe when the proposal was announced, fuelling criticism that the change would serve the interests of world football’s governing body more than those of African football.

As part of the restructuring, CAF proposed an annual Africa Nations League involving all 54 member associations. Motsepe said the ambition was to create a “world-class competition every year” and reduce the organisation’s dependence on AFCON revenue.

However, doubts over the commercial prospects of a replacement competition were reinforced by CAF’s experience with the Africa Super League.

The club competition, announced in 2022 with projected annual revenues of $200m, was discontinued after one edition, with Motsepe later admitting that commercial agreements had fallen short of expectations.

“We didn’t proceed as quickly because the partners that were giving us money were not giving us the deals we thought we would be happy with,” he said.

FIFA President, Gianni Infantino, first publicly proposed holding AFCON every four years in February 2020, an idea Motsepe rejected after becoming CAF president the following year.

Mezahi suggested that the latest reversal could reflect African football’s growing willingness to assert its interests within FIFA.

He argued that support for Infantino at the Cape Verde meeting may have come in exchange for concessions, including the restoration of AFCON’s two-year cycle. The suggested arrangement has not been established as a confirmed agreement.

AFCON has predominantly been held every two years since its inaugural edition in 1957, apart from two three-year gaps in the 1960s and the one-year interval between the 2012 and 2013 tournaments.