Strong support

African finals set to serve as World Cup qualifiers

BAMAKO (Reuters) -- A proposal to use the African Nations Cup finals as the qualifying competition for the World Cup is expected to be overwhelmingly endorsed by the Congress of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) on Thursday.

The plan to use the Nations Cup in place of preliminaries for the World Cup will be put to delegates at the Congress, meeting on the eve of this year's African Nations Cup starting in Mali on Saturday.

If the plan is approved the four semifinalists of the 2006 Nations Cup finals will qualify for the World Cup finals in Germany and the fifth African place will be decided by a formula put in place before each finals by CAF's tournament organizing committee.

CAF officials said there was no longer a place on the new unified international calendar for the World Cup and Nations Cup qualifiers to run parallel as they do every four years.

The Nations Cup is a biennial event -- timing that CAF say they are not prepared to change because of the revenue it generates for the African soccer body.

The tournament held in the non-World Cup year would not be used for World Cup qualifying, only the one held in the same year as the World Cup. So the 2004 finals, due to be held in Tunisia would be unaffected by the change.

The new system would start in 2006. The host for that tournament is to be decided by CAF later this year with Algeria, Egypt, Gabon and South Africa having submitted bids.

FIFA have already agreed to the change and its final acceptance is expected to be nothing more than a round of applause at the congress, where proposed changes to CAF statutes are rarely debated or contested.

Group stage

Other business includes a proposal from Egypt that a group stage be brought into the early rounds of African club competition to give weaker teams more games.

A financial report, showing a healthy positive balance of almost US$20-million is also to be presented, followed by several key elections to the all-powerful executive committee of the organization.

Leo Mugabe, the leader of Zimbabwean football and nephew of the country's president, is expected to lose his bid for re-election to South African Football Association president Molefi Oliphant, while CAF vice president General Seyi Memene of Togo faces a six-way fight for his seat on the committee.

There will also be the election of two of Africa's members on the FIFA executive but both incumbents -- Ismail Bhamjee of Botswana and Amadou Diakite of Mali -- are likely to be voted in ahead of the only other candidate, Ousseynou Dieng, president of the Ivory Coast Football Federation.

 

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