The 2016 Africa Beach Soccer Cup of Nations, also known as the 2016 CAF Beach Soccer Championship, was a beach soccer tournament which took place in Lagos, Nigeria in December, to determine the best beach soccer nation in Africa and doubles as a qualification event for the 2017 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, with the two finalists progressing to the finals in the Bahamas.[1] This was the first time that the tournament is held in Nigeria.
Due to being just 14 teams in qualifying compared to 19 at the previous edition, there was only one round of qualifiers this year where seven teams emerged to join host Nigeria for the final tournament.[2][3]
Qualification ties are played on a home-and-away, two-legged basis. If the sides are level on aggregate after the second leg, the away goals rule is applied, and if still level, the tie proceeds directly to a penalty shoot-out (no extra time is played).[4]
The draw for the final tournament of the competition took place on 24 September 2016, 16:00 UTC+2, at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[7] The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four.[8] For the draw, the hosts Nigeria are seeded in position A1 and the defending champions Madagascar were seeded in position B1. The remaining six teams were seeded based on their results in the 2015 CAF Beach Soccer Championship.[9]
Each team earns three points for a win in regulation time, two points for a win in extra time, one point for a win in a penalty shoot-out, and no points for a defeat. The top two teams from each group advance to the semi-finals.
1 No qualifiers took place; representatives were selected by the confederation. 2 CONCACAF and CONMEBOL held a joint championship for qualification. 3 Qualification was achieved through the Euro Beach Soccer League. (p) This indicates an additional play-off round, supplement to the main qualification event.