Four Countries to battle it out for Afcon 2017

The Confederation of African Football have confirmed that the list of countries in line to host the 2017 African Nations Cup has been whittled down to four. Seven nations met the September 30 deadline to replace war-torn Libya as host of the continental championship, but only four of those have been determined as “compliant” with the criteria required by CAF. And so one of Algeria, Egypt, Gabon and Ghana will play host to the 2017 finals, with CAF yet to set the date for when they will make a final decision. Gabon seem an unlikely winner as the 2015 tournament will be in nearby Equatorial Guinea and CAF will almost certainly take the event to another region on the continent. Ghana are always a strong option and have proven facilities, but hosted as recently as 2008. Egypt likewise have all the required infrastructure but are still a fragile society after the political turmoil that ousted a succession of presidents from office in the last few years. They last hosted in 2006 and at the weekend missed out on yet another finals appearance when they were ousted from the qualifiers for 2015. They have not been to the continental showpiece since winning it in 2010. Algeria must be seen as a strong option, it would keep the tournament in north Africa and is the only chance for the region to host over a 19-year period with the finals up until 2023 already having been allocated to Cameroon (2019), Ivory Coast (2021) and Guinea (2023). The last time the tournament was held in north Africa was Egypt in   2006 and the region may hope to make up for missing out on 2015 too after Morocco withdrew over fears of Ebola.