25 April 2006. The Confederation of African Football announced on Thursday that Ghana will organise the African Nations Cup in 2008. The tournament will be held from 20th January to 10 February 2008.
The last African Nations Cup was in Egypt, where the hosts won the finale against Ivory Coast (4-2).
The matches will be played in four venues, which are Accra, Kumasi, Sekondi and Tamale. Ghana previously hosted the continent's premier football tournament in 1963 and 1978. In 2000 the country co-hosted with Nigeria.
Preparation for the Nations Cup in Ghana is currently on-going with stadiums being built or renovated in all the venues.
African champions Egypt received a favorable draw for the qualifying group stages of the 2008 Cup of Nations. The five-time continental kings were drawn with Mauritania, Botswana and Burundi in Group Two, after Thursday's draw in Cairo.
Ivory Coast, the runner-up at the last Nations Cup tournament, are in Group One with Gabon, Madagascar and Djibouti, while 2006 bronze medalists Nigeria are in Group Three with Lesotho, Uganda and Niger.
The opening round of group matches are to be played between 3-5 September 2006 with the final round of games ending between 7-9 September 2007. Forty-seven countries will compete in 12 groups to qualify for 15 out of the 16 places at the 2008 finals.
Automatic qualification is guaranteed to the team that tops each group, while the top three runners-up in the groups consisting of four teams will join them.
This means that only one team has the chance of qualifying from Group 12, which has just three teams - Morocco, Zimbabwe and Malawi. As host, Ghana qualifies for the 2008 tournament automatically |
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