AFCON 2021 draw postponed indefinitely due to CoVID-19 related reasons
The draw for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), which was scheduled to take place on June 25 in the tournament’s host country Cameroun, has been indefinitely postponed due to CoVID-19 related reasons.
A report by a Ghanaian website, kickgh.com says Cameroon Local Organizing Committee (LOC) has agreed to postpone the draw following recommendations from Confederation of African Football (CAF) due to the pandemic.
The report says a new date hasn’t been decided yet for the tournament scheduled to start on January 9 to February 6 next year.
CAF had also recently postponed all African 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers matches that were supposed to take place from June but will commence in September and October.
The June qualifiers will be shifted to a window available in March.
CAF had said in a statement in May that the postponement was done in consultation with world football governing body, FIFA “to ensure the optimal playing conditions for all participating teams”.
“CAF is re-assessing its protocols and processes to enhance the implementation of CoVID-19 related protocols, including specifically focusing on pre-match testing which had been the source of some challenges in previous windows,” the statement had said.
The Flames were expected start the 2022 Qatar World Cup qualifiers away to Cameroun between June 5-8, 2021 before hosting Mozambique on match day 2 between June 11-14.
Then they are expected to be up against Côte d’Ivoire in back-to-back fixtures — starting at home between September 1-4 and away between September 5-8.
Their last home match was to be against Cameroun between October 6-9 and wind up the campaign away in Mozambique between October 10-12.
The winners of the 10 groups will qualify for the next round where they will face off to identify the five teams that will qualify for the Qatar finals.
Malawi national team qualified for their third AFCON finals from a qualifying group that had Burkina Faso, Uganda and South Sunday.
Burkina Faso led the group while the Flames came runners-up after beating Uganda in the last qualifier in March.
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