The 16 teams at this year’s tournament in Equatorial Guinea will share a total of 10 million dollars. The losing finalist wins a million dollars.

This is according to a special CAF media guide for the games, which also says the other two semi-finalists will have $750,000 each.

The eight quarter-finalists are each guaranteed $600,000 while third-placed teams in each of the first round groups will get $500,000 each. Bottom teams get $400,000 each.

This 30th edition of the ‘African World Cup’ kicks off at 16:00 GMT today with the home country squaring up with Congo in the opening match. Three hours later Burkina Faso will meet Gabon in the other Group A match.

The two matches will be played in Bata, Equatorial Guinea’s biggest city, which also hosted the opening match in 2012 when the tournament was co-hosted with Gabon.

Current champions Nigeria, who won the 2013 AFCON in South Africa, beating fellow West Africans Burkina Faso 1-0 in the final, are absent, having failed to make it through the qualifying series.

Determined to make a success of the championship, Equatorial Guinea President, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has affirmed that he would personally pay for 40,000 seats to offer to the poorest supporters throughout AFCON-2015, urging the very rich to do same.

Cafonline.com quotes him as saying Monday evening on national television, during a meeting with local chiefs, and military and civilian officials of the coastal region of the country: “We have to make the AFCON event monumental; you should therefore buy tickets to fill up the stadia. Let the rich help the poor! Myself, I am buying 40,000 tickets, that is 10,000 per region (the four sites hosting the AFCON).

“These are CFA500 (75 cents) which is equal to 20 Million CFAF (30.000 euros).”

To instigate the populace to go to the stadium, Mbasogo reduced the work shift of civil servants in the regions where encounters are taking place by two hours on the days matches are played.

Moreover, Gabon, a neighbouring country, with which Equatorial Guinea jointly organised AFCON-2012, has supplied 20 buses to transport the teams.

“It’s our contribution to support Equatorial Guinea. It is said among us that when the neighbour is hosting a feast, it is the entire village that is feasting,” Gabonese Minister of Sports stated, justifying his gesture.

•Photo shows action from the 2013 AFCON won by Nigeria, who failed to qualify for the current championship.