Details of Afcon draw
by Gary Al-Smith 05 July 2012, 14:51
Next year's African Cup will mark the last time that the competition will be held in even-numbered years since Ethiopia staged the 1968 finals. The competition switches to uneven-number years from 2013 to avoid every second tournament being staged in the same year as a World Cup.
Ghana's Black Stars will be watching, with the rest of Africa, as the Confederation of African Football holds the draw for the final round of qualifiers for next year's Afcon in South Africa on Thursday.
Representatives from all the competing nations will be present for the draw at a cafe near Johannesburg's OR Tambo international airport.
Apart from pairing off the countries, there will be a separate draw to decide which one has home advantage first in the final round scheduled for the weekends of September 7-9 and October 12-14 this year.
Here is a step-by-step guide of how the draw will actually be conducted.
How it works
The 15 seeded teams represented by 15 balls will be in Pot A, while 15 other teams will be in Pot B. There will be a third pot (Pot C), which will contain a total of 30 balls representing teams from both Pots A and B.
So, if ball A is drawn first from Pot C, it means that the team drawn from Pot A will play their first match at home and the team drawn from Pot B will play their second match at home.
If ball B is drawn first from Pot C, it means that the team drawn from Pot B will play their first match at home and the team drawn from Pot A will play their second match at home.
Who is who?
The seeded teams are Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Equatorial, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Sudan, Tunisia and Zambia.
The teams not seeded are Botswana, Cape Vert, Central Africa, Ethiopia, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, DR Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
The winners of these third round qualifiers will be played between September and October with the winners decided on a knockout basis.
Next year’s Afcon will be played in South Africa from January 19 next year.
