In 1979, FIFA created a world championship for upcoming footballers, causing CAF to install a home-and-away qualification tournament for African nations called the
African Youth Championship which also crowned the tournament's champions. In 1991, CAF upgraded the tournament into a full-scale tournament contested by 8 in a chosen host nation. CAF changed the name of this competition to the
African U-20 Championship for
the 2011 edition so as to distinguish it from
the U-17 competition. On 6 August 2015, the CAF Executive Committee decided to change the tournament's name to the
Africa U-20 Cup of Nations in line with the flagship
Africa Cup of Nations tournament. However, the name on the official competition logo after 2015 reads as the
U-20 Africa Cup of Nations. On 21 July 2016, French energy and petroleum giant
TotalEnergies (formerly
Total S.A.) secured an 8-year sponsorship package from CAF to support its competitions. Since
the 2021 edition, the tournament has been contested by 12 teams. On 28 April 2026, CAF awarded Ghana the hosting rights for the upcoming 2027 edition, thus Ghana will host its second tournament edition and first since 1999 (which they won) in the same year the country will celebrate 70 years of
independence. ==Tournament summary==