A total of 47 countries entered the competition, including South Africa, which automatically qualified.
The remaining 46 teams competed in the qualifiers. In each of the three rounds, teams were drawn into two-legged home-and-away knock-out ties.[1] Aggregate goals were used to determine the winner. If the sides were level on aggregate after the second leg, the away goals rule was applied, and if still level, the tie proceeded directly to a penalty shootout instead of any extra time being played.
Preliminary round: The lowest-ranked four teams started from the preliminary round.
Second round: The 14 winners of the first round joined the 16 teams which qualified for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.
The 15 winners of the second round qualified for the finals.
The draw for the preliminary round and the first round was made on 28 October 2011 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.[2] The draw for the second round was made on 5 July 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa, after the first round was completed.[3]
Togo were banned from the 2012 and 2013 Africa Cup of Nations tournaments by CAF after they withdrew from the 2010 tournament following a deadly attack on their team bus.[4] Togo appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, with FIFA president Sepp Blatter stepping in to mediate. The ban was subsequently lifted with immediate effect on 14 May 2010, after a meeting of the CAF Executive Committee.[5]
Originally scheduled 6–8 and 20–22 January 2012.[6] However, the São Tomé and Príncipe v Lesotho match was postponed from 8 January to 15 January at the request of the Lesotho Football Association due to the unavailability of flights to São Tomé via Libreville.[7]
The 30 teams which qualified for the second round were ranked based on their performances during the last three Africa Cup of Nations, i.e. the 2008, 2010, and 2012 editions.[12] For each of the last three African Cup of Nations final tournaments, the following system of points is adopted for the qualified countries:
Classification
Points awarded
Winner
7
Runner-up
5
Losing semi-finalists
3
Losing quarter-finalists
2
Eliminated in 1st round
1
Moreover, a weighted coefficient on points was given to each of the last three editions of the Africa Cup of Nations as follows:
If two countries are equal in the number of points in the above classification the number of points that they have accumulated throughout all their matches played in the last 3 final tournaments of the CAN determined their ranking (on the basis of 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 for a match lost).
The teams were divided into two pots based on the ranking. Each tie contained one team from each pot. The order of legs for each tie was determined by draw.[13]
Note 3: Libya v Algeria played in neutral venue of Morocco due to the political situation in Libya.[15]
Note 4: Senegal v Ivory Coast was abandoned with 15 minutes to go, after the crowd started to riot.[16] The result was confirmed as 2–0 in favor of Ivory Coast by the CAF.[17]
