Host country Gabon Location Madagascar | Dates 2 Apr 2017 – 16 Apr 2017 Teams 8 | |
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Venue(s) TBA (in TBA host cities) | ||
The 2017 Africa U-17 Cup of Nations is the 12th edition of the Africa U-17 Cup of Nations (17th edition if tournaments without hosts are included), the biennial international youth football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for players aged 17 and below. The tournament was originally set to take place in Madagascar between 2–16 April 2017. However, the CAF Executive Committee decided on 12 January 2017 to withdraw the hosting rights from Madagascar following the reports of the CAF inspection teams. On 3 February 2017, Gabon were selected as the new hosts, and the tournament will now be played from 21 May to 4 June 2017.
Contents
The top four teams will qualify for the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup in India.
Qualification
The qualifiers were played between June and October 2016. At the end of the qualification phase, seven teams joined the hosts Madagascar.
Player eligibility
Players born 1 January 2000 or later are eligible to participate in the competition.
Qualified teams
Gabon replaced Madagascar due to their selection as the new hosts. Moreover, Tanzania replaced Congo due to a Congolese player failing to turn up for a Magnetic Resonance Imaging test.
Venues
Original venues of Madagascar before hosts were withdrawn.
New venues of Gabon to be announced.
Draw
The draw for the tournament took place on 24 October 2016, 11:00 local time (UTC+2) at the CAF Headquarters in Cairo.
The teams were seeded based on the results of the last edition (final tournament and qualifiers).
Squads
Each squad can contain a maximum of 21 players.
Group stage
The group winners and runners-up advance to the semi-finals and qualify for the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup.
The teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers are applied in the following order:
- Number of points obtained in games between the teams concerned;
- Goal difference in games between the teams concerned;
- Goals scored in games between the teams concerned;
- If, after applying criteria 1 to 3 to several teams, two teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the two teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 7 apply;
- Goal difference in all games;
- Goals scored in all games;
- Drawing of lots.
All times are local, WAT (UTC+1).
Knockout stage
In the knockout stages, if a match is level at the end of normal playing time, kicks from the penalty mark are used to determine the winner (no extra time shall be played).