With 182 days left to the start of the 2016 African Nations Championship in Rwanda, Times Sport today begins the countdown to the continent’s second biggest international competition.

The tournament, which is scheduled to be held between January 16 and February 7, 2016, will be the 4th edition of the biennial football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and reserved only for players playing in their respective domestic leagues.

Rwanda will be joined by 15 other qualified teams for the finals tournament that will be played at four stadiums namely; Amahoro national stadium, Kigali Regional Stadium, Stade Huye and Umuganda stadium across three cities—the City of Kigali, Huye and Rubavi districts respectively.

A total of 42 teams entered the qualifying rounds, which are divided in seven sub zones. Qualifying started in June and will end in October. As hosts, Rwanda qualified automatically from the Central-East Zone while Sudan received a bye to the first round where they will face Uganda, who eliminated Tanzania at the preliminary round.

Burundi and Ethiopia will face-off in the other first round and the winners will qualify for the finals tournament.

Burundi knocked out Djibouti while Ethiopia overcame Kenya in a two-legged preliminary phase last month.

The other zone include; Northern Zone (2 spots), Zone West A (2 spots), Zone West B (3 spots), Zone Central (3 spots) and Southern Zone (3 spots).

Among the notable absentees from the qualifiers is; Egypt, Algeria (Northern Zone), Cape Verde Islands (Zone West A), Benin (Zone West B), Equatorial Guinea (Central Zone) and Malawi (Southern Zone).

editorial@newtimes.co.rw