CAF Doubles WAFCON Winner’s Prize to $2m
Africa’s champion women’s team will leave Morocco next month with double the cheque their predecessors collected a year ago, after the Confederation of African Football raised the winners’ purse for the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations from $1 million to $2 million, the second such increase inside twelve months and the third in three years.
The announcement, made by CAF at a press conference on Wednesday, lands four days before the expanded 16 team tournament opens in Rabat on Sunday, July 26, and it reshapes the financial arithmetic of a competition that only five years ago paid its champion $200,000.
CAF confirmed that the overall prize fund has risen by 67 per cent, from $3.475 million at the previous edition to a record $5.8 million. The runners up will collect $750,000, a 50 per cent increase on the $500,000 paid last year, while the reward for third place rises by 43 per cent. Reports of the breakdown put that third place figure at about $500,000, a number consistent with a 43 per cent uplift on the $350,000 paid at the last edition, though CAF has not published a full itemised schedule for every finishing position.
Every one of the 16 participating nations is guaranteed $150,000 in participation funding, up $25,000 or 20 per cent on the $125,000 paid previously. That guaranteed component alone accounts for $2.4 million of the $5.8 million pool, meaning roughly 41 kobo in every naira of the fund is now distributed before a single ball is kicked, a structural shift that benefits federations with little realistic hope of reaching the final.
CAF framed the increase against its own record in office. “Since the current CAF leadership assumed office, the prize money of the winner has increased by 900 per cent from $200,000 to $2m and the total prize money has increased by 495 per cent from $975,000 to $5.8m,” the body said in a statement published on its website.
Both percentages hold up under scrutiny. A rise from $200,000 to $2 million is a tenfold jump, correctly expressed as a 900 per cent increase, while $975,000 growing to $5.8 million represents a 495 per cent increase. The trajectory is equally clear at each step: $200,000 when the current administration took office, $500,000 for the 2022 edition in Morocco, $1 million for the 2024 edition, and $2 million now.
CAF President Patrice Motsepe tied the decision directly to credibility. “We’ve increased the prize money of the WAFCON. It’s unbelievable,” he said, adding that promises count for little unless they are backed by “quantifiable, visible and tangible things that people can feel and touch.” He noted that the winner of the women’s competition received $200,000 when he became president.
The financial news arrives after a difficult organisational cycle. WAFCON 2026 was originally scheduled for March 17 to April 3 and was postponed roughly two weeks before kick off, with CAF citing “unforeseen circumstances” and confirming a new window of July 25 to August 16. South Africa publicly indicated readiness to step in on the original dates, but the tournament stayed in Morocco, which becomes the first country to stage three consecutive editions.
Motsepe acknowledged the criticism without conceding the choice was wrong. “I think part of how you do better, or how you move in the right direction of success, is to recognise the weaknesses and things you can deal with differently and better,” he said.
The competition also arrives only twelve months after the previous edition, itself delayed. Matches will be spread across Rabat and Casablanca after fixtures originally allocated to Fes were relocated, with 34 games in three weeks. The group stage runs from July 26 to August 6, knockouts begin on August 8, and the final is set for August 16.
Hosts Morocco headline Group A alongside Algeria, Senegal and Kenya. Group B features former champions South Africa with Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Tanzania. Defending champions Nigeria occupy Group C with Zambia, Egypt and Malawi, while Group D brings together Ghana, Cameroon, Mali and Cape Verde. Of the 16 nations present, only Nigeria and South Africa have ever lifted the trophy.
For the Super Falcons, record 10 time champions, the raised purse follows one of the most dramatic finals in the tournament’s history. Nigeria trailed hosts Morocco 2-0 at half time at the Olympic Stadium in Rabat on July 26, 2025, after goals from Ghizlane Chebbak and Sanaa Mssoudy, before Esther Okoronkwo converted a penalty on the hour mark, Folashade Ijamilusi levelled in the 71st minute and Jennifer Echegini struck late to complete a 3-2 comeback under coach Justine Madugu.
What the players eventually receive from CAF’s pool is a separate question from what CAF pays out. Prize money is remitted to national federations, not to individuals. Ahead of last year’s final, the Nigeria Football Federation was widely reported to have pledged 30 per cent of the winnings to the squad, which on a $1 million prize amounted to roughly $12,500 per player across a 24 player group. On the new $2 million figure, a comparable arrangement would work out at about $25,000 per player before any state intervention.
Separately, President Bola Tinubu conferred the national honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger on all 24 players and 11 technical crew members at a State House reception on July 28, 2025, and announced the naira equivalent of $100,000 for each player, $50,000 for each member of the technical crew, and a three bedroom apartment apiece under the Renewed Hope housing scheme. The Nigeria Governors Forum separately pledged ₦10 million per player.
Payment of that package became contested. In October 2025, football journalist and former FIFA Anti Racism Task Force member Osasu Obayiuwana reported that players had told him they were still waiting, quoting the response as “We have not been paid the money. We are still waiting!” In December 2025, National Sports Commission chairman Shehu Dikko said the rewards had been processed, with housing title documents and national honour certificates being handled. The status of individual disbursements has not been independently verified in full and remains a matter of public dispute.
Placed beside CAF’s own men’s competition, the gap remains wide. CAF announced that the winner of the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco would receive $10 million, a 43 per cent rise on the $7 million paid at the 2023 edition, with reported total distributions in the region of $32 million to $35 million. On those figures, the WAFCON champion earns one fifth of what the men’s champion earns, from a pool roughly one sixth the size.
Globally, the picture is starker still. UEFA approved a €41 million pot for Women’s EURO 2025 in Switzerland, a 156 per cent increase on 2022, with every one of its 16 teams guaranteed €1.8 million in participation money alone, more than the entire WAFCON winners’ cheque. UEFA also obliged federations to pass between 30 and 40 per cent of receipts directly to players, a mechanism CAF has not publicly adopted.
Beyond the money, Morocco doubles as the qualifying route to the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil in 2027. All four semifinalists qualify automatically. The four losing quarterfinalists meet in playoff matches on August 13, with the two winners taking Africa’s places in FIFA’s intercontinental playoff tournament, meaning the continent could ultimately send as many as six teams to Brazil, four of them directly.
That structure raises the value of a quarterfinal far above its prize money line. For federations across the continent, qualification carries FIFA participation revenue, sponsorship leverage and broadcast exposure that dwarf the sums CAF announced on Wednesday.
Whether the new purse translates into better paid, better prepared players will depend less on CAF’s headline figure than on what 16 federations do with the money once it lands. That question, in Nigeria as elsewhere, has a long and unresolved history.
WAFCON 2026, CAF, Super Falcons, Patrice Motsepe, Prize Money, Women’s Football, Morocco, Nigeria Football Federation, FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027, African Football