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Algeria Sports Minister Mohamed Tahmi is surprised about CAF’s decision to hand the AFCON 2017 hosting rights to Gabon.
 
The continents football governing body on Wednesday announced Gabon as the host for the next edition of the competition.

Algeria and Ghana who all submitted their bids were unheeded by CAF as the body decided to award the hosting rights to the central African country.

Tahmi has however expressed shock about the indefinite decision taken by CAF following the association’s failure to reveal the results of voting in Cairo.

“CAF’s decision shocked us and we can’t accept it till now. Our bid was the best among all but the CAF president gave it to Gabon. With all respect to Gabon but that was illogical,” Tahmi told state media on Thursday.

"Algeria has treated CAF with all respect in the past years but now I think we will change that. They will see a new face.”

This follows an earlier bias allegation leveled against the association by a member of Ghana’s biding team, Randy Abby who also questioned the criteria and bases used by CAF to select the host for the next edition of the competition.

"We will like to congratulate Gabon for being declared the winner. But there was something and in the coming hours or days you will hear, I'm sure, from especially the Algerians,” Randy Abbey had earlier told Joy Fm.

"Everybody was brought to the conference room and the Caf president just took a paper that said Gabon had won."

CAF in recent times have been heavily criticized for their prejudice way of making decisions.

Gabon will however be hosting their second CAF of Nations tournament having co-hosted with Equatorial Guinea in 2012.