Member Association Focus: Rwanda
Our weekly Member Association focus falls on Rwanda, a member of the Confédération Africaine de Football since 1978.
National team
Rwanda sit second in their FIFA World Cup qualifying group but fell five points behind top placed South Africa after two home qualifiers in March saw them lose to Nigeria and then draw with Lesotho. They must still play four more qualifiers in Group C away to Nigeria, Zimbabwe and South Africa and home to Benin. Rwanda had an upset win over heavyweights Nigeria in the last of their TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers in November but it was not enough to book them a place in this year’s tournament in Morocco. They finished third in Group D with eight points, on the same points as Benin but missed out on an inferior head-to-head record. Rwanda’s women narrowly lost to Egypt in February in the first round of the qualifiers for the 2026 TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations finals. They were beaten 1-0 in Kigali in the first leg but forced a credible 2-2 draw in the return leg in Ismailia.
Clubs
APR FC have qualified to compete in the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League 20 times since 1997 but are still to reach the group phase of the competition. This season they beat Azam from Tanzania in the first round but then lost 4-2 on aggregate to Pyramids of Egypt in the last of the preliminary knockout rounds. In the TotalEnergies CAF Confederation Cup, Police FC were eliminated in the first round by CS Constantine of Algeria. Rayon Sports represented Rwanda in last year’s qualifiers for the TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Champions League. They lost all three games in the CECAFA preliminaries.
Leadership
Alphonse Munyantwali was elected unopposed as president of the Rwanda Football Federation in 2023. He had previously been chairman of Police FC and is a former Governor of Western Province.
History
Rwanda qualified for the Cup of Nations finals in 2004, then one of the smallest countries to have made it to the tournament. They scored a sensational home win over highly fancied Ghana to win their place and in so doing caused a major sensation. In the tournament’s opening game, hosts Tunisia had to scramble to edge Rwanda 2-1 before the Amavubi then held Guinea to a 1-1 draw. Rwanda, whose squad was coached by Ratomir Dujković and had only a handful of foreign-based players, finished their campaign with a shock 1-0 win over giant neighbours DR Congo. But the four point haul was not enough to see them through to the quarter-finals.