Will Mandela National Stadium (Namboole) host AFCON 2027 matches?

Not confirmed — and neither is anywhere else. CAF has not ratified a single stadium or host city, not even for the opening match or the final. This ground is among the venues put forward by the host federations. The designation is expected to come with the final draw, due in 2027-03.

What is the capacity of Mandela National Stadium (Namboole)?

We publish no figure, because the sources do not agree. The capacities circulating online come from project announcements, construction updates and news articles copying one another. Printing one of them would mean picking at random and presenting the result as verified.

Does the stadium meet CAF requirements?

The ground exists and is already in use, but CAF applies its own standards to finals venues: floodlighting, dressing rooms, security, media areas. The inspection has not been made public, so we assert nothing about the outcome.

Mandela National Stadium (Namboole)

Mandela National Stadium (Namboole) in Kampala is one of the grounds proposed for AFCON 2027. CAF has confirmed no venue for the tournament, and the February 2026 inspection found shortcomings at every ground it visited.

What is on record

City	Kampala (1,797,722)
Country	Uganda
Capacity	to be confirmed
Opened	1997
Building work	Under renovation
Confirmed by CAF	No

What the CAF inspection found

CAF inspected all proposed grounds between 11 and 17 February 2026 and concluded that none of them met the standard required for the tournament. The findings recorded for this venue:

CAF required partial demolition and rejected the proposed 15-month schedule as incompatible with the tournament timetable, setting completion for December 2026. The ground is closed, with the second of three phases under way.

Why the capacity is not stated

We publish a capacity figure only where sources agree and the number is confirmed. Where they disagree, the field stays empty rather than picking one silently. A stadium listed with a confident but wrong capacity is worse than one listed honestly as unknown, because the wrong number then gets copied onward by everyone who reads it.

The most tangled case is the national stadium in Kampala, where figures before renovation range from 38,000 to 45,202 while the announced target moved from 60,000 in March 2026 to more than 50,000 in June. We publish no capacity for it at all.

What has to happen next

Three dates decide whether this ground makes it. CAF inspects again in August 2026 and expects construction to be at least 80 per cent complete. All competition venues are required to be finished by December 2026. Full operational readiness, meaning lighting, security and broadcast systems commissioned and tested, is required by January 2027.

Nothing in that sequence has happened yet, which is why every venue on this site carries an unconfirmed status. The list of grounds is expected to be settled around the final draw in March 2027.

The city around it

Mandela National Stadium (Namboole) stands in Kampala, Uganda. The city is among those put forward to host matches, but CAF has not ratified the list of host cities either.

Common questions

Will Mandela National Stadium (Namboole) host AFCON 2027 matches?: Not confirmed — and neither is anywhere else. CAF has not ratified a single stadium or host city, not even for the opening match or the final. This ground is among the venues put forward by the host federations. The designation is expected to come with the final draw, due in 2027-03.
What is the capacity of Mandela National Stadium (Namboole)?: We publish no figure, because the sources do not agree. The capacities circulating online come from project announcements, construction updates and news articles copying one another. Printing one of them would mean picking at random and presenting the result as verified.
Does the stadium meet CAF requirements?: The ground exists and is already in use, but CAF applies its own standards to finals venues: floodlighting, dressing rooms, security, media areas. The inspection has not been made public, so we assert nothing about the outcome.