For all the talk of growth, investment, and a new era for African women's football, the most striking thing about the build-up to the 2026 Women's Africa Cup of Nations has been how little growth there has been.
During a visit to Casablanca and Rabat in the weeks before the tournament, I saw precisely one WAFCON billboard. It's a notable contrast with previous tournaments in Morocco, when the branding, advertising, and sense of an approaching continental event, had been difficult to mis.
The faces of Morocco players Fatima Tagnaout, Ghizlane Chebbak and Sanaa Mssoudy were everywhere. This time, there has been little of the buzz that accompanied the previous two editions, despite Morocco becoming the first country to host three consecutive WAFCONs.
Television distribution via Channel Four in the UK and Canal+ -- announced by CAF the day before the tournament kicked off -- has been confirmed surprisingly late, and without the fanfare that one might expect.
Perhaps that should not be surprising; WAFCON 2026 has spent much of the year feeling like a tournament searching for its place in the calendar, rather than one of African football's flagship events.
It was originally scheduled for March 17-April 3, but even in February, uncertainty surrounded whether Morocco would host at all, with South Africa publicly discussing the possibility of stepping in in a muddled series of ministerial declarations.
CAF president Patrice Motsepe insisted at the time that the dates could not change because WAFCON formed part of qualification for the 2027 Women's World Cup.
"We can't change the date," he said, only for CAF to announce on March 5 -- less than two weeks before the scheduled opening game -- that the date had been changed, with the competition pushed back by over four months to July 26 to August 16.
CAF described it as a necessary decision due to "certain unforeseen circumstances," although no meaningful explanation followed, and weeks later Moroccan government minister - Minister of Industry and Trade Ryad Mezzour - insisted that the country had been ready to host "any time", saying postponement had been CAF's decision.
That vacuum inevitably encouraged suspicion, particularly given the political and institutional fallout from January's chaotic men's AFCON final in Rabat and the subsequent tension surrounding Morocco, Senegal and CAF.
Whatever the truth, the consequences of the uncertainty were real.
Ghana coach Kim Bjorkegren told ESPN that the handling of the situation had affected careers as well as preparations: "I was really disappointed with how they were handling the situation.
"When they moved the WAFCON, they should have done it earlier so we all knew about it, because it affects a lot.
"I know that many of the players actually had new clubs, for example, they were ready to move, but then they didn't want to sign them because of the push of the WAFCON.
"So I think for some of the players, it was not good."
Ghana had even arranged a camp in Dubai specifically to prepare for the conditions they expected to encounter in Morocco in March, only for that planning to become redundant.
The rearrangement has created another problem, with the WAFCON now kicking off exactly a week after the men's FIFA World Cup final, squeezing Africa's premier women's competition into the immediate aftermath of the biggest sporting event on earth.
For many players, including Bjorkegren's Ghana squad, it also arrives during the club off-season, after months without competitive football.
There is still no clarity, either, over whether WAFCON will ultimately follow the men's AFCON onto a four-year cycle, after CAF confirmed that the latter will become quadrennial after 2028. The silence comes in sharp contrast to the sweeping (seismic) AFCON reforms.
All of this sits awkwardly beside CAF's increasingly emphatic language about its commitment to women's football.
"It just wouldn't happen for other tournaments in women's football - and especially in men's football," Nigeria's Ashleigh Plumptre told BBC's Sportsworld in March, the defender clearly unconvinced by CAF's pledged commitment to giving the women's game its dues.
There have been announced changes; the WAFCON expands to 16 teams this year, a decision that was taken midway through the qualifying campaign, with four of the sides who lost their playoff ultimately being allowed passage to the tournament anyway.
It came across as rushed and amateurish, making something of a mockery of some of the redundant qualifiers played.
Motsepe also announced this week that the champions' prize money will double from $1 million to $2 million, although the genuine structural tension that this model of reward has for the resources of the field of competitors moving forward has never truly (publicly, at least) been scrutinised.
Nigeria and Morocco do not need the same kind of help as Niger and Mauritius, for example. A hefty financial reward for the champions my incentivise excellence, but it also risks creating a cycle whereby success generates the revenue to make the strong stronger - and therefore more successful - while they continent's lesser lights are constantly rendered less competitive.
The overall pot has increased 67 percent to $5.8 million, but at some point, the logistics, marketing and communication need to match the increasingly flashy announcements about prize funds and investment - much of it ultimately enabled by the enormous revenues flowing through the modern FIFA ecosystem.
Despite all of the muddles, the stakes over the coming weeks are enormous -- continental supremacy, qualification for the 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup in Brazil and, perhaps, another indication of whether the women's game in Africa can convert its extraordinary talent, and rapidly increasing visibility, into something more durable.