| Tourney Name: | African Youth Championship |
| Year: | 1981 |
| Dates: | 8 June 1980 – 24 April 1981 |
| Num Teams: | 14 |
| Confederations: | 1 |
| Count: | 1 |
| Matches: | 10 |
| Goals: | 49 |
| Prevseason: | 1979 |
| Nextseason: | 1983 |
The 1981 African Youth Championship was the 3rd edition of the biennial African qualification tournament for the FIFA World Youth Championship which was contested on a home-and-away two-legged basis.
Egypt beat Cameroon 3–1 on aggregate in the final to claim their inaugural title, although both teams qualified for the 1981 FIFA World Youth Championship in Australia.
The following teams entered this edition of the tournament and played at least a match:
The first leg was played on 8 June and the second leg was held on 22 June 1980. The winners advanced to the first round.
The teams who received byes to the first round are Guinea, Cameroon, Tunisia, Morocco, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Algeria, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Uganda, the Central African Republic and Kenya.
|}
1 Malawi and Benin withdrew.
|}
1 Ivory Coast, Uganda and Kenya withdrew.
|}
1 Civil unrest and political turmoil in the Central African Republic forced their team to withdraw after the first leg, leading to the scrapping of the second leg and advancing Algeria to the semi-finals.
|}
1 Algeria withdrew.
The first leg was played on 12 April and the second leg on 24 April 1981.
|}
The two best performing teams qualified for the 1981 FIFA World Youth Championship.
Equatorial Guinea
Zimbabwe