CAF Proposes new date for AFCON
“What we can say is that all the confederations hope to be able to play again this year and each is making its [own] arrangements. In this regard, the Asian confederation has announced that it will resume its qualifications in October and November. And at CAF we subscribe to this logic,”
CAF General Secretary, Abdelmounaim Bah
The Confederation of African Football is under lots of pressure to complete the qualifiers for the 2021 African Cup of Nations slated for January 2021 in Cameroon.
The qualifications were suspended indefinitely in March by CAF due to the Covid-19 pandemic and has since not resumed.
Since we have barely six months to the commencement of the competition, CAF is planning to play two of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying matches in October and the other two matches in November to be able to complete before December.
With some countries planing to have their domestic leagues return in the next few months and the resumption of European leagues, CAF hopes Afcon qualifiers could continue in October.
All the matches will be played in strict compliance with the health directives linked to the fight against corona virus.
CAF General Secretary, Abdelmounaim Bah has stated that moving the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament to June or July is not an option. He however indicated that January 2022 would be an alternative if the event cannot be held next year.
“What we can say is that all the confederations hope to be able to play again this year and each is making its [own] arrangements. In this regard, the Asian confederation has announced that it will resume its qualifications in October and November. And at CAF we subscribe to this logic,” Bah told Radio Sport Info as quoted by goal.com.
“The international windows scheduled for March and June have been cancelled, but the months of October and November 2020 represent a lot of hope. We no longer include September in the strategies because it will be quite complicated to have the teams travel from one country to another as early as September. This means that the matches can resume locally but international matches will be difficult to be held because of the travel factor,” the General Secretary indicated.
Bah says if Afcon fails to take place in January 2021, the next best option would be to stage the tournament in January 2022. He says switching the tournament to June 2021 would see Afcon suffer counter-attraction from the European Championship and Copa America.
“If we cannot make up for the Afcon 2021 qualifiers in October and November, we will have to think of another plan… But today the longer the crisis lasts, the more this scenario deserves to be thought about. Afcon next January, however, remains our number one priority,” said Bah.
“January 2022 remains the second option for Afcon 2022…As everyone knows, playing in June/July in Cameroon is difficult because of the weather conditions. In addition, in June/July 2021 there is already a lot of competition with the Euros and the Copa America. So the best time to postpone the Afcon would be January 2022. But all that I repeat, are alternatives because our priority for the Afcon is to play in January 2021.”
The CAF Champions League and Confederations Cup are still suspended
Mustapha Hadji
