Algeria beat Ghana to host 2017 Africa Cup of Nations?

Algeria will on Wednesday be announced by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) as the hosts of the 2017 AFCON ahead of Ghana, several media reports from that country have suggested.

Ghana and Gabon are the other countries in the race to stage the Nations Cup after Egypt withdrew to back the Algerian bid.

Ghana for one, are very keen to stage the competition even though they last hosted it seven years ago and have altogether played the perfect hosts on three other occasions – in 1963, 1978 and 2000 (co-hosts with Nigeria).

AfricanFootball.com specially gathered that a high-powered team of businessmen from Ghana was at the recent AFCON in Equatorial Guinea to lobby the CAF executive committee, who will vote on who should host the tournament.

The 2017 tournament will come just a month after the general elections in Ghana and many experts said the present government is very much interested in getting the country to host as a result.

However, others have equally suggested that Gabon, who co-hosted the 2012 AFCON with Equatorial Guinea, are now favoured to organize the next competition.

Algeria have hosted the AFCON once, in 1990, the only time they also won the tournament.

The 2017 AFCON was to have been organised by Libya, but the war-torn North African country have since opted out.

Cameroon with host the 2019 AFCON with Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea designated hosts for the 2021 and 2023 tournaments, respectively.