The CAF decided in July 2017 that the format of the qualifying competition should be changed and split according to zones.[2] The qualifiers were played between 19 July and 18 September 2018. At the end of the qualification phase, seven teams joined the hosts Tanzania.
Player eligibility
Players born 1 January 2002 or later are eligible to participate in the competition.
Qualified teams
The following eights teams qualified for the final tournament.[3]
Note: All appearance statistics count only those since the introduction of final tournament in 1995.
Each squad can contain a maximum of 21 players.[4]
Draw
Procedure to be confirmed. The eight teams will be drawn into two groups of four teams. The hosts will be seeded in Group A, while the title holders (or the qualified team with the best result in the previous edition) will be seeded in Group B.[4]
Group stage
The top two teams of each group advance to the semi-finals and qualify for the 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup.
Tiebreakers
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 72):[4]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;