The TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations, Cote d’Ivoire 2023 group stages draw will come off today in Johannesburg, South Africa.

According to the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the draw will come on at 17h30 GMT (19h30 South African time).

The 48 countries qualified to participate in the second round of the qualifiers have been seeded into four pots based on the official FIFA ranking released on 31 March, 2022.

The teams will then be drawn into 12 groups of four teams (Group A to L) with the top two teams from each group qualifying for the tournament to be played in the West African country.

Hosts Cote d’Ivoire will also participate in the draw even though they have already secured the place in the tournament which means only one other team from their group will qualify for the competition.

CAF, added that suspended African Countries like Kenya and Zimbabwe will also be included in the draw despite their temporary bans.

However, if the suspension is not lifted two weeks before their first matchday of the qualifiers, both associations will be considered as losers and eliminated from the competition.

Consequently, their groups will be composed of three teams with the first and runner-up teams of those groups qualifying to the final tournament.

As a result of that decision, Kenya and Zimbabwe cannot be drawn in the same group in order to avoid having one group with only two teams in case the suspension on both associations is not lifted.

The draw will be conducted by the CAF Director of Competitions Samson Adamu and assisted by African football legends in Lucas Radebe of South Africa and Ivorian Solomon Kalou.

The qualifiers for the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations Cote d’Ivoire will start in June 2022.