International sports streaming platform DAZN is reportedly set to expand its African football offering in Germany, Austria and Switzerland after securing a new package of Confederation of African Football (CAF) media rights.
According to German media reports, the package includes the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) and the 2026-27 CAF Champions League, potentially giving DAZN exclusive rights to two of the continent's most prominent men's competitions across the DACH region. The reports have not, however, been accompanied by a formal CAF announcement confirming the DAZN deal, so the precise scope and exclusivity of the agreement should be treated as unconfirmed for now.
If confirmed, the agreement would represent a significant shift in the German-speaking market. Sportdigital was CAF's DACH broadcast partner for the 2025 AFCON, with CAF itself listing Sportdigital for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Sportdigital had also acquired the rights to the 2023 edition, which was played in early 2024 after being postponed from its original 2023 schedule. Its deal covered the 2025 tournament and its qualification campaign as well.
The relationship between the two companies has nevertheless been more complicated than a straightforward change of broadcaster. Sportdigital's football channel is itself distributed through DAZN in the DACH market, meaning DAZN subscribers have previously been able to access Sportdigital programming through the streaming platform.
The reported new arrangement would therefore see DAZN move from being a distribution platform for Sportdigital's African football coverage to potentially holding the underlying CAF rights itself.
A Major Summer Football Property
The 2027 AFCON should be particularly attractive to European broadcasters because of its position in the international football calendar.
The tournament is scheduled for June 19 through July 17, 2027, with Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda becoming the first three-country co-hosts in AFCON history. CAF expects 24 national teams to participate. The tournament will also mark AFCON's return to East Africa for the first time since Ethiopia hosted the competition in 1976.
For broadcasters serving German-speaking audiences, the competition will also feature a potentially substantial collection of players familiar to Bundesliga and German football viewers. Morocco international Ismael Saibari, for example, joined Bayern Munich from PSV Eindhoven in July 2026 after representing Morocco at the 2026 World Cup. Algeria's Ibrahim Maza is another Bundesliga-based international, with Bayer Leverkusen having provided one of the German-based players in Algeria's 2026 World Cup squad.
The exact list of Bundesliga players who will appear at AFCON 2027, however, cannot yet be known: qualification has only just begun, and national-team selections will not be finalized until much closer to the tournament.
The timing of AFCON 2027 could nevertheless make it an especially useful property for European sports platforms. The AFC Asian Cup in Saudi Arabia runs from January 7 to February 5, 2027, so it will not overlap with AFCON. Meanwhile, the 2027 Concacaf Gold Cup is scheduled for June and July, although Concacaf has not yet published the full tournament schedule.
That means AFCON will be one of the major international men's football tournaments competing for European viewers during the 2027 summer period, alongside the Gold Cup and the broader club-football offseason. The Gold Cup's North American location can create less convenient viewing hours in Europe, although the extent of that disadvantage will depend on its eventual match schedule.
AFCON Is Entering A New Era
The 2027 tournament is also notable because it is expected to be the last AFCON played on the traditional two-year cycle. CAF has moved to a four-year cycle from 2028 onward, meaning subsequent editions will be staged in 2028, 2032 and 2036. That change increases the scarcity of the AFCON property and potentially makes each edition more significant from a media-rights perspective.
CAF has already begun preparing the commercial infrastructure for that new cycle. In July, the governing body issued an invitation to tender for a commercial partner covering the 2028, 2032 and 2036 AFCON tournaments. The package encompasses global media, broadcast and sponsorship rights. CAF said the 2025 AFCON generated more than 3.2 billion television viewers and six billion digital views, although those are CAF's own reported audience figures rather than independently audited measurements.
CAF is simultaneously procuring the production infrastructure required for the 2027 tournament. Its host-broadcast tender calls for a service provider to produce the international television feed that CAF and its licensed broadcasters will use. The tender's deadline was extended to September 16, 2026.
The organization has also opened tenders covering areas including transmission, outside-broadcast crews, graphics, VAR, player tracking, goal-line technology and other tournament services.
The 2025 AFCON Controversy Adds Another Storyline
The previous edition provides an unusual backdrop to the 2027 tournament.
Senegal initially defeated hosts Morocco in the 2025 AFCON final, but the match descended into controversy after Senegal's players temporarily left the field during extra time following a disputed incident involving Morocco's Brahim Díaz.
CAF subsequently overturned the on-field result. In March 2026, its Appeal Board ruled that Senegal had forfeited the final, recording the match as a 3-0 victory for Morocco under Article 84 of the AFCON regulations.
The dispute is not necessarily finished. As of September 2026, Senegal had appealed the ruling to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, with a hearing scheduled for October 8, 2026, according to Reuters.
Consequently, Morocco is currently the official holder of the 2025 AFCON title under CAF's ruling, while Senegal continues to contest that decision. Any suggestion that both countries officially "claim the win" should therefore be qualified: Senegal maintains its position that its victory on the field should stand, while CAF's current official record recognizes Morocco as champion.
A rematch of sorts between the two nations in 2027 would inevitably carry additional narrative interest, particularly given the unresolved legal dispute.
Mamelodi Sundowns Break North African Dominance
The reported CAF Champions League rights acquisition would give DAZN another major African club property alongside AFCON.
The most recent Champions League campaign produced a notable break from the competition's recent North African dominance. South Africa's Mamelodi Sundowns defeated Morocco's AS FAR 2-1 on aggregate in May 2026, winning their second CAF Champions League title after their first triumph in 2016.
That ended a period in which North African clubs had won every edition from 2017 through 2025. Egypt's Al Ahly won four times during that period, while Pyramids, Wydad Casablanca and Espérance each won once. The majority of those finals were contested exclusively by North African teams.
Sundowns' victory consequently provides a fresh competitive storyline heading into the 2026-27 CAF Champions League. The South African champions have already demonstrated that the competition is not necessarily a closed shop for the traditional North African powers, and they now enter the new campaign as defending champions.
The 2026-27 competition is currently moving through its qualifying stages, with the successful clubs progressing toward the 16-team group phase. The group-stage draw and subsequent schedule will determine the precise route to the knockout rounds and ultimately the 2027 final.
For DAZN, assuming the reported rights deal is ultimately confirmed, the combination of AFCON and Champions League football would provide coverage of both sides of CAF's international portfolio: the continent's flagship national-team tournament and its premier club competition.
It would also give the streaming service an opportunity to turn African football into a more substantial year-round proposition in Germany, Austria and Switzerland rather than relying on a single major tournament every two years.