AFCON 2012 Draw is out minus Togo.

The draw for the 2012 Orange Africa Cup of Nations which will be staged by Equatorial Guinea and Gabon was conducted in Lubumbashi today by the Confederation for African Football (CAF).

Forty-four teams will take part in the qualifying series that begins in September. But only 14 will book a berth to the continental showpiece.

The sides have been drawn into eleven groups of four and will each play each other in a round-robin format. The winners of each group will qualify automatically for what will be the 28th edition of the AFCON while the three best second placed teams will also make it. Equatorial Guinea and Gabon qualify automatically as co-hosts. The groups in full:

Group 1: Mali, Cape Verde, Zimbabwe, Liberia
Group 2: Nigeria, Guinea, Ethiopia, Madagascar
Group 3: Zambia, Mozambique, Libya, Comoros
Group 4: Algeria, Morocco, Tanzania, Central Africa Republic
Group 5: Cameroon, Senegal, Congo DR, Mauritius
Group 6: Burkina Faso Gambia Namibia Mauritania
Group 7: Egypt, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Niger
Group 8: Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, Rwanda, Burundi
Group 9: Ghana, Congo, Sudan, Swaziland
Group 10: Angola, Uganda, Kenya, Guinea-Bissau
Group 11: Tunisia, Malawi, Chad, Botswana

I'm sure you noticed there is no Togo. That's because the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will soon come to a (positive, I hope) decision on whether it will upheld CAF’s ban of Togo from the next two editions of the competition. If CAS should rule in Togo’s favour in the case, CAF has confirmed that there is no material obstacle for a new draw to take place before qualifying gets underway.

Tema Youth’s plan to court CAS

We have known the ‘what’ of the Tema Youth case but, crucially, not the ‘how’ they plan to do that.

Now we know.

Still reeling from the fact that they have been relegated from the Glo Premier league, Tema Youth have already said they would go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland if what they see as a GFA error is not corrected.

They have filed for another review today and to give this a broader perspective, here is how the issue really happened, according to Tema Touth. The GFA’s Appeals Committee declared Tema Youth losers of their games against Berekum Arsenal and Sekondi Eleven Wise for fielding an unqualified player, Emmanuel Clottey.

Now, Tema Youth were first shorn of six points (and another six after the Committee chairman said the first six was not enough an d was an error), causing their relegation. As for the club, they claim Clottey was a Great Olympics player and then had a six-month spell in Denmark.

On his return, Tema Youth claim Clottey was registered by them on April 8 this year during the second transfer window. This, they say was after the receipt of the player’s International Transfer Cert (ITC)

And so Tema Youth insist they met all that was required by the FA and FIFA law.

Well, from the GFA point of view, these are prickly times considering that Nyantakyi is also in hot water over his alleged unhealthy bribery comments.

But let me say this: I would be massively surprised if Tema Youth win this case in Ghana, let alone at the CAS.