The Confederation of African Football has postponed the opening group matches of the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers.
The group stage of the qualifiers were due to be played in June but following deliberations between FIFA and CAF, the games will now begin in September.
A FIFA statement disclosed that the postponement is to ensure optimal playing conditions for all teams.
“Fifa can confirm that in conjunction with Caf and taking into consideration the current disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the need to ensure optimal playing conditions for all teams, it has been decided to postpone the African qualifiers for the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 that were due to be played in June 2021,” the statement said.
“The qualifiers are now scheduled to take place in the existing windows of September, October and November 2021, and March 2022.”
AsaaseSports understands that the postponement was forced, in part, after CAF’s licensing Committee rejected a significant number of facilities that were presented for approval. The postponement, therefore, allows the affected nations, two months to put the facilities in the right shape before the next inspection.
The affected countries could not move the games to neighboring countries due to travel restrictions and the risk of spreading the novel coronavirus.
In all, 40 teams from the continent will contest for one of five slots available for the continent at the global football showpiece.
To qualify, each country first has to navigate through an initial stage of 10 groups of four nations. The group winners will then progress to a final play-off phase to decide the teams qualify for the World Cup.