The procedure for the draws of the 2006 African Cup of Nations (CAN) to take place in Egypt early next year was made public yesterday during the Africa Nations Cup Committee meeting under the leadership of CAF President, Issa Hayatou. In conformity with the regulations of the competition, Egypt, the host country shall be the top seeded team of group A and Tunisia, the trophy holder will be the top seeded team of group C. Egypt and Tunisia will respectively have letters A1 and C1 on the board.
According to their ranking in the last three editions, Cameroon and Nigeria are the top seeded teams of groups B and D. An integral draw will be then done to determine which of these two countries shall be awarded the letter B1 and which one will have the letter D1. The remaining twelve countries will be shared into three levels depending on their results in the three editions of the CAN in 2000, 2002 and 2004. The first step will be to share out
the teams of the third level (Zimbabwe, Zambia Angola and Libya) in the four groups. The second stage will be to divide the second level teams (Ghana, Guinea, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire) and the third stage for the third level teams (Senegal, Morocco, South Africa , RD Congo). By the end of these stages the sixteen qualified countries would then, be shared out among the four groups.
The committee also expressed its satisfaction at the reports on the African Cup of Nations and World Cup preliminaries which were presented. The Egyptian Local Organising Committee (LOC), also presented an impressive progress report on CAN 2006. CAF President Issa Hayatou said: "We are extremely delighted to see that the preparations for CAN 2006 are on the right track." For the first time in Africa, tickets can be purchased online according to Egypt LOC. an inspection report on the preparation for CAN Ghana 2008, was also presented. The committee decided to send another inspection team to Ghana in early January 2006.
