ABTipants in the final tournament reached 16 in 1998 (16 teams were to compete in 1996

but Nigeria withdrew, reducing the field to 15, and the same happened with Togo's withdrawal in
2010), and until 2017, the format had been unchanged, with the sixteen teams being drawn into four
groups of four teams each, with the top two teams of each group advancing to a "knock-out" stage.
On 20 July 2017, the Africa Cup of Nations was moved from January to June and expande