CAF Exco Committee Meeting Set To Announce AFCON 2021 New Dates

CAF Executive Committee meeting is expected to hold on Tuesday, June 30, 2020 and is expected to face a tough session during which it will come up with a new schedule/timetable for the next Africa Cup of Nations.

The original January 9 to February 6 2021 in Cameroon is no longer feasible due to FIFA’s recent alteration of men’s international football calendar owing to current coronavirus pandemic around the world.

FIFA Council last week Wednesday, approved five critical proposals presented by its COVID-19 FIFA-Confederations Working Group, and the implication is that CAF and the likes of AFC [Asia], CONCACAF [North/Central America and Caribbean] and the OFC [Oceania] will do a lot of reorganisation in their respective calendars.

The changes that affects CAF and co, according to FIFA include:

• To move the intercontinental play-offs for the 2022 World Cup from March 2022 to June 2022
• To postpone the September 2020 window for the AFC, CAF, CONCACAF and the OFC
• To extend the June 2021 window by seven days for the AFC, CAF, CONCACAF and the OFC in order to facilitate the playing of four games instead of the current two

GoalBall understand that CAF chiefs are already considering an option of postponing the AFCON 2021 tournament until 2022.

Only two rounds of fixtures have been played in the 2021 AFCON qualifies, with the matches for March, June and September 2020 international windows already been truncated by the postponements.

The 2022 World Cup African qualifiers earlier shifted from March to October/November 2020 may also be affected again as CAF reschedules its calendar.