January 9 has been set as the deadline for the submission of final squad list for the African Nations Cup, the Confederation of African Football has announced.

The final 23-man squad must be sent to the organisation’s Cairo headquarters by midnight GMT on the night of January 9, it confirmed.

All 16 finalists are entitled to have a 23-man squad and a delegation of a further 17 officials

List sent late will see the countries being fined by CAF and a player subtracted from their list.

This happened to South Africa in 1998 when it delayed sending its list to CAF and were only allowed to participate with 22 players, forced to leave striker Pollen Ndlanya out of the squad as a result of an embarrassing administrative botch up.

CAF have long scrapped a rule which demanded preliminary squad lists from participating countries.

They used to ask for a list of 30 players and then a final list of 22 on deadline day but scrapped the regulation some 20 years ago now.

Squad sizes have been increased from 22 to 23 in line with Fifa’s changes for the World Cup.