Tickets for African Cup of Nations to go on sale from this week

(AFP/PHOTO/ABDELHAK SENNA)

Tickets for the January's African Cup of Nations are expected to go on sale in the host country of Angola during the week beginning December 21. The only catch is that at this time the official outlets for tickets are restricted to local branches of one of the national banks, Banco Africano de Investimentos.

Further, only branches within each host city will be stocking the tickets, so buyers will need to be in the vicinity of Cabinda, Benguela, provincial capital Lubango or national capital Luanda to get their hands on a fresh set of tickets for the finals.

Sixteen African national teams have made it through the qualifying stages, though it is Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria and current champions Egypt who have the strongest international records.

The Africa Cup of Nations starts on January 10 and concludes on January 31. Teams are split into four groups until January 21, when a couple of days' break precede the quarter-finals on January 24 and 25, semi-finals on January 28, and third-place playoff on January 30 before the grand final on the last day of the tournament.