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Ngqabutho Moyo Sports Reporter
THE Confederation of African Football (Caf) has approved the qualifying format for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations finals.
Hosts will be included in the preliminary stages of the tournament.Caf are expected to name the host country for the event on April 8.

The qualifiers for the 31st edition of the competition are expected to start in June and for the first time the host nation will participate in the process but will not be at risk of elimination.

Caf released a statement which stated that the qualifiers for the event will begin in June 2015 on Fifa calendar dates June 8 and 16.

“For the first time, the host country will participate in the qualifying stages though the matches concerned will not be computed for points, they shall count as friendly matches.

“Fifty-two teams will be engaged. They will be divided into 13 groups of 4 teams each. The first from each group shall qualify for the final stage, as well as the best two runners-up, exclusive of the group of the host country, which only one team will  qualify.

“Also, if due to the withdrawal of one team and a group happens to be left with just three teams, this group will not be considered when determining the best second team,” reads the statement

The Caf executive committee has also approved the qualifying format for the 2018 World Cup finals to take place in Russia. The qualifiers are expected to start in October this year.

“The competing teams will have to go through three preliminary rounds in order to bring the number of teams down to 20 so as to be able to constitute five groups of four teams, where the first from each group will qualify for the World Cup finals.

“The preliminaries of the Fifa World Cup shall begin during the two Fifa dates in October 2015, given that the draws shall take place on July 25, 2015 at Saint-Pietersburg in Russia,” read the statement.