CAF insists 2021 AFCON will go ahead as planned

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has stated that the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) will go ahead as planned, despite the current coronavirus epidemic, writes africanfootball.com.

The spread of Covid-19 has put literally billions of people under lockdown and brought an end to virtually all sporting activity, with football and the Olympics the highest profile casualties of the current crisis.

CAF recently announced the postponement of the 2020 African Nations Championship (CHAN) in Cameroun, but as yet they have no plans to do the same with the next AFCON, which will also be held in the central-west African country in January and February 2021.

Acting general secretary, Abdelmounaim Bah believes the qualifiers can still be completed within the remaining international windows for 2020, thus, there is no basis for a postponement at this stage.

“For now, the Africa Cup of Nations is still scheduled for January to February 2021,” Bah is quoted by Goal.

“The only reason we would shift AFCON would be a situation [Covid-19] that continues into the year 2020 and if this current crisis does not allow us to play all the qualification matches.

“We still have four qualifying days to play and we can play them in two international windows.

“We have four at our disposal: June, September, October, November. At this point, anything is possible.

“If we can’t play matchdays three and four in June, we will play them otherwise in September or October and we will play matchdays five and six in November.”