7th All Africa Games 1999

9 to 19 September 1999, South Africa

1999 Champions: Cameroon

Cameroon duplicate Egypt's feat of winning the Championship twice following an extra-time penalties win over Zambia in the 1999 final.

The Egyptian city of Alexandria was the first proposed site for the Africa Games in 1927. However, although 13 countries were invited to participate, the Games never materialised. In the early 1960s the Friendship Games were held amongst the French speaking countries of Africa and in 1965 at a conference of Ministers of Youth and Sport in Dakar, Senegal it was agreed that these Games should be replaced by the All Africa Games open to all nations on the African continent . The first All Africa Games were held in 1965 at Brazzaville in the Congo and the fledgling Games have since grown from strength to strength.

Since 1987 the games have been held on a quadrennial schedule held the year before the Olympics and from 1991 have been restricted to an U-23 competition with only three over-age players allowed. The Olympics 2000 counterpart is also an U-23 event.

South Africa were the hosts of the 7th All-Africa Games in a decision by ANOCA (Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa) and thereby qualified automatically for the eight-nation tournament.

The other seven qualifiers came from Africa's seven sporting zones, which are the old geographical borders made by the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa.

Egypt were the gold medallists at the 1995 games in Harare, beating Zimbabwe in the final. South Africa did not qualify for the event, beaten by Zambia in the final round of the pre-tournament preliminaries.

Nigeria hosts the 2003 Games in the capital Abuja.