The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced the postponement of all its competitions initially scheduled to hold between March and April, including all the AFCON 2021 Qualifiers.
In a statement released on Friday, CAF explained that the decision was taken as based on the “growing concern of Coronavirus ( CONVID-19) and the latest declaration of the World Health Organization (WHO describing it as a Pandemic”.
“As CAF’s top priority remains the health and safety of our stakeholders (players, officials, sponsors, broadcasters, employers etc), we have been monitoring closely, together with our medical committee, the impact of the current Coronavirus crisis,” the statement reads.
CAF made it clear that since the Coronavirus has been declared as pandemic by WHO and since several players who were meant to feature in the AFCON qualifier matches come from countries which have been severely affected by the virus especially in Europe and Asia, they had no alternative but to postpone the qualifiers.
“We will share with you a proposal of a new calendar that will be communicated on a second step, according to the evolution of the coronavirus situation,” added CAF in their communication.
The South Sudan Football Association (SSFA) had this morning written to CAF in relation to the current situation of the Coronavirus. South Sudan’s Bright Star were meant to face Uganda Cranes in back to back ties of the qualifiers.
This means that Nigeria’s AFCON 2021 qualifiers against Sierra Leone earlier scheduled for this month will not hold.
