Football | Gabon chosen as host of 2017 African Cup

Gabon will host the 2017 African Cup of Nations in place of war-torn Libya. Gabon, which co-hosted the tournament in 2012, was chosen again yesterday in a vote by the Confederation of African Football’s executive committee in Cairo.
Gabon was selected over rival bids from Algeria and Ghana.
It means the African Cup will again return quickly to familiar territory.
Equatorial Guinea, which shared the African Cup with Gabon in 2012, hosted on its own this year. Neighbor Gabon will now also get the chance to do that in two years.
Libya was initially meant to host in 2013, but swapped that tournament with South Africa to give it more time to be ready. But the North African nation conceded last August that it still wouldn’t be able to hold the 16-team event in 2017 because of security concerns, forcing CAF to restart the bidding process.
Egypt was among the contenders for 2017 but withdrew to support its fellow North African bid from Algeria.
African Cup hosting has been problematic for CAF in recent years after Libya first asked for a change in 2013.
This year’s edition in January and February was meant to be in Morocco, but Moroccan authorities asked for it to be postponed because of fears over the spread of the Ebola virus from West Africa.
CAF refused to change the dates and stripped Morocco of the tournament, handing it instead with just two months’ notice to Equatorial Guinea. Morocco was banned from the 2017 and 2019 tournaments because of its failure to host this year, but recently had that decision overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport and has been reinstated.
The three African Cups after 2017 have already been decided and five successive tournaments will now be in West or Central Africa.
Long-time CAF President Issa Hayatou’s home country of Cameroon will stage in 2019, current champion Ivory Coast will be the host in 2021, and Guinea — which is still recovering from the Ebola outbreak — will get the tournament in 2023.
Qualifying for 2017 will begin in June with 52 of CAF’s 54 member countries listed to take part. Somalia and Eritrea did not enter the qualifiers. AP