The 2006 African Women's Championship was the 7th edition of the biennial African

women's association football Women's association football, more commonly known as women's football or women's soccer, is the team sport of association football played by women. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries, and about 200 national teams partic ...

tournament organized by the

Confederation of African Football The Confederation of African Football (CAF) is the administrative and controlling body for association football, beach soccer, and futsal in Africa. It was established on 8 February 1957 at the ''Grand Hotel'' in Khartoum, Sudan. At the FIFA Co ...

. Originally scheduled to be held in

Gabon Gabon ( ; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and ...

in September, it took place in

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

for the 4th time from 28 October to 11 November 2006. Gabon withdrew as hosts due to "organizational reasons", thus CAF gave this tournament edition's hosting rights to Nigeria in May 2006. Initially, this edition of the tournament was scheduled for September 2006, but it was moved to October due to weather considerations. This edition of the tournament also doubled as the African qualification for the

2007 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup, the fifth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, was an international football competition for women held in China from 10 to 30 September 2007. Originally, China was to host the 2003 edition, but the outbreak o ...

won its 7th consecutive title, beating

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

1–0 in the final, although both finalists were guaranteed qualification to that edition of the international tournament in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. South Africa's Portia Modise was named player of the championship.

Qualification

The original hosts (Gabon) qualified automatically, while the remaining seven spots were determined by the qualification rounds which took place from March to August 2006. Nigeria initially entered qualification at the second round and was scheduled to play

Equatorial Guinea Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. It has an area of . Formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea, its post-independence name refers to its location both near the Equ ...

when CAF elected them as replacement hosts, thus that match was scrapped and both teams qualified for the group stage at Gabon's expense.

Format

Qualification ties were played on a home-and-away two-legged basis. If the aggregate score was tied after the second leg, the

away goals rule The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

would be applied; if scores still level,

extra time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required t ...

would be skipped and the use of a

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

would determine the qualifier. The seven winners of the qualification round qualified for the group stage.

Qualified teams

2006 African Womens Football Championship qualification

made their tournament debut at this edition. ;Notes

Group stage

Tiebreakers

If two or more teams in the group stage are tied on points tie-breakers are in order: # greater number of points in matches between tied teams # superior goal difference in matches between tied teams # greater number of goals scored in matches between tied teams # superior goal difference in all group matches # greater number of goals scored in all group matches # fair play criteria based on red and yellow cards received # drawing of lots

Group A

Equatorial Guinea arrived at

Murtala Muhammed International Airport Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) () is an international airport located in Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria, and is the major airport serving the entire state. The airport was initially built during World War II and is named after Murt ...

in a private chartered plane which had no clearance to land, with its players unable to disembark for 3 hours. This left them no other choice than to return home unhappy with the treatment they received by airport officials despite organizers trying to remedy the situation. However, their first match was played as scheduled. ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Group B

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Knockout stage

Bracket

Semi-finals

Winners qualified for the

. ----

Third place play-off

Final

This match was described by the BBC as "a drab encounter".

Awards

Notes

References

External links

2006 edition record and results
at

RSSSF The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (''RSSSF'') is an international organisation dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around ...

2006 edition results
at

BBC Sport BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC BBC Television, television, BBC Radio, radio and BBC Online, online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadc ...

{{2007 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

Women's Africa Cup of Nations tournaments International association football competitions hosted by Nigeria 2006 in Nigerian sport