African Cup of Nations: Seeding for Gabon/Equatorial Guinea 2012 qualifiers (27 January 2010)

Detailed explanation of the seeding method.

These are the groups before the 2010 ACN semifinals:

Group 1: Nigeria, Congo, Madagascar, Sao Tome e Principe
Group 2: Algeria, Cape Verde Islands, Lesotho, Central African Republic
Group 3: Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau
Group 4: Egypt, Senegal, Chad, Djibouti
Group 5: Ghana, South Africa, Swaziland, Somalia
Group 6: Cameroon, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Mauritius
Group 7: Tunisia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Seychelles
Group 8: Mali, Rwanda, Botswana, Comoros
Group 9: Burkina Faso, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Eritrea
Group 10: Zambia, Guinea, Libya, Niger
Group 11: Benin, Morocco, Congo DR, Mauritania
Group 12: Angola, Malawi, Namibia, Liberia
Group 13: Mozambique, Togo, Tanzania

Groups 6 to 13 are pretty much locked, because only Zimbabwe are able to improve their ranking by drawing or winning their friendly against South Africa. They can overtake Libya with a draw and could further overtake Congo DR and Namibia with a win.

1 - Rank in the 2012 ACN seeding
2 - Team
3 - January 2010 CAF ranking (i.e. FIFA ranking within CAF)
4 - Points in the last group stage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifiers
5 - Bonus points for FIFA World Cup qualification (6 points)
6 - Angola 2010 group stage points
7 - Angola 2010 bonus points (12 for the winner, 9 for the finalist, 6 for the SF, 3 for the QF)

 1 Nigeria                   3 12 6 6 6 30
 2 Algeria                   5 13 6 4 6 29
 3 Côte d'Ivoire             4 16 6 4 3 29
 4 Egypt                     1 13 0 9 6 28
 5 Ghana                     6 13 6 3 6 28

The order of the top 5 can change after the semifinals and final.

Nigeria (1, 2, 3)
Algeria (1, 2, 3, 4)
Côte d'Ivoire (3, 4, 5)
Egypt (1, 2, 4, 5)
Ghana (1, 2, 5)

I wrote to CAF asking which teams chose not to take part in the ACN 2012 qualifiers. Hopefully, someone will be able to answer.

---

About me:

Christian, husband, father x 3, programmer, Romanian. Started the blog in March 2007. Quit in April 2018. You can find me on LinkedIn.