The Ministry of Youth and Sports is offering a LD10,000 ($8,000) prize for a new logo for the Africa Cup of Nations 2017, which will be held in Libya for the first time since 1982.

It says that individuals and advertising firms are invited to submit entries in accordance with the rules set by the ministry, which is in overall charge of organising the football event.

The Africa Cup of Nations tournament was originally meant to be hosted by Libya in 2013, before the start of the 2011 conflict forced it to be relocated to South Africa. The 2015 edition is scheduled to take place in Morocco.

Plans are now afoot in Libya resume work on new stadiums and prepare other infrastructure for the event. 

"What will make the tournament in 2017 different from the rest is because of Libya's geographical location," said Makhlouf Mabruk, who lead a recent Libyan fact-finding mission to South Africa.

"It is close to Europe, the Middle East and most of the outside world, so this will be the gathering of the whole world. My message to the football family is to come to Libya and see how nice the country is."