Tunisian Football Federation vice-president Maher Snoussi has negotiated a deal with the Confederation of African Football (CAF) that will enable the country to compete in the 2017 African Nations Cup qualifiers.

TUNISIAN Football Federation vice-president Maher Snoussi has negotiated a deal with the Confederation of African Football (CAF) that will enable the country to compete in the 2017 African Nations Cup qualifiers.

The federation was threatened with expulsion from the preliminary tournament if it did not apologise by yesterday for claims of bias by officials in a chaotic end to their campaign in this year's Nations Cup in Equatorial Guinea.

Snoussi told reporters on Monday he had met CAF president Issa Hayatou in Dakar this month and agreed on a solution to the dispute between the two bodies.

Tunisia agreed to withdraw their protest to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) after CAF fined them about R700000 and threatened to ban them from the next tournament if the federation did not apologise for remarks made about officials after the 2-1 quarterfinal loss to hosts Equatorial Guinea.

CAF said at the time it "instructed the Tunisian federation to send to CAF a letter of apology for the insinuations of bias and lack of ethics against CAF and its officials, or to present irrefutable evidence to substantiate the accusations".

The north Africans were incensed when Mauritian referee Rajindraparsad Seechurn awarded the hosts a penalty in the dying minutes which allowed them to take the game to extra-time and ultimately triumph 2-1.

Seechurn was banned for six months by CAF for his role in the incident.