CAF okays World Cup slots for Nations Cup semi-finalists

BAMAKO, Jan 17 (AFP) -- The Confederation of African Football (CAF) on Thursday approved automatic World Cup slots for the semi-finalists of the African Nations Cup during a World Cup year.

The procedure to decide the fifth World Cup qualifier from Africa will be decided by CAF's organising committee before Saturday's opening match of the Nations Cup finals between Mali and Liberia.

The 25th CAF general assembly unanimously endorsed the new format in line with the harmonised international calendar set down by world governing body FIFA, which gave its blessing to the proposals.

CAF president Issa Hayatou, who said the new format would reduce the number of qualifying games from 18 to 9, will begin from the 2006 Nations Cup, whose host has yet to be named by CAF.

Hayatou also assured member nations of fairness despite the stakes involved in playing in the Nations Cup increasing significantly.

He said results of previous Nations Cup tournaments have shown that host nations do not necessarily benefit from playing in front of their fans. For example, Tunisia and Ghana have hosted the tournament but were still eliminated in the early rounds.

It also means that frequent club-versus-country row between African national teams and foreign clubs over the release of players for international engagements should decrease significantly.

"It has been difficult getting the release of African players by their national teams because we play too many qualifying games and we have a different calendar from that of other continents," Hayatou said.

The cost for countries competing in two different qualifying tournaments for the World Cup and Nations Cup is also expected to be reduced going by this new arrangement, officials said.

However, Hayatou insisted the championship will continue to be staged every other year to allow African countries to develop their sporting facilities, as was the case with Burkina faso and Mali recently. The African Nations Cup was first staged in 1957 in Sudan and has since grown into a 16-team tournament.