The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has officially sold the centralised television and marketing rights to the African qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup.

CAF president Issa Hayatou signed the contract for the African preliminaries of the FIFA 2014 World Cup with B4 Company, which is associated with the French entity Lagardère Sport and its subsidiary Sportfive.

The contract was concluded during a ceremony held in Cairo on Tuesday, following a resolution adopted unanimously by all CAF members on 31 May.

“The contract rights include the television/media rights and the marketing rights for each of the qualifying matches of the FIFA World Cup, in Brazil 2014.  A minimum of 10 advertising boards will be exclusively reserved for the member associations,” a statement published on the CAF website said on Tuesday.

“Moreover, and in consideration for the full respect of the television production requirements of CAF, the Host Federation and the Host Broadcaster will be entitled to broadcast each Home Match live, free to air by terrestrial means only,” it added.

According to the CAF, “the minimum guaranteed for the above-mentioned contract is US$ 23 million.”

The African qualifiers will begin in November 2011 and end in November 2013, and will involve 52 countries.