AFCON 2017: Gabon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Algeria named top seeds

Host Gabon, holders Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Algeria have emerged top seeds for the draw of the final tournament of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) Gabon 2017.

The quartet will make up Pot 1 for the draw to be held on Wednesday, October 19 in Libreville.

The seedings were approved by the Organising Committee of the AFCON at its meeting on Monday at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, after taking into account the performances of the qualified teams during the AFCON final tournaments (2012, 2013, 2015); AFCON qualifiers (2013, 2015, 2017); FIFA World Cup (2014) and FIFA World Cup qualifiers (2014) competitions.

The formula adopted for each of the AFCON final tournament was eight points for the winner, six for the runner-up, four for semi-finalists, three for quarter-finalists, two for the third team in the group and one for the fourth team in the group.

Based on the above, the following four pots were established:

Pot 1: Gabon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Algeria.

Pot 2: Tunisia, Mali, Burkina Faso, DR Congo.

Pot 3: Cameroon, Senegal, Morocco, Egypt.

Pot 4: Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Guinea Bissau.

For the draw, host Gabon automatically goes to A1 and holders Cote d’Ivoire in C1. A draw will be done for Ghana and Algeria for the positions of either B1 or D1.

The final tournament will hold from January 14 to February 5, 2017.

in the Gabonese cities of Libreville, Franceville, Oyem-Bitam and Port-Gentil.

The second stage will be drawing of teams in Pot 4. The first team drawn goes to A4, B4 for the second, C4 for the third and D4 for the fourth team.

The same procedure will be repeated for Pot 3 and Pot 2 until the groups are completed.