The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced on Friday March 13 that its Qualifying matches for Afcon 2021 are all called off due to the wide spread of Coronavirus. The CAF statement was dispatched to all Member Associations stating the growing concern of the Covid 19 virus and the declaration by the World Health Organisation (WHO) describing it as a pandemic.
in light of this development according to CAF, its Emergency Committee has decided to postpone the following engagements; Total Afcon 2021 Qualifiers Match Days 3 and 4 of the Qualifiers initially scheduled from 25th to 31st March 2020, FIFA Women’s U20 World Cup Qualifiers, initially scheduled from 20 to 22nd March and 27 – 29th March 2020 and Total Women Afcon 2020 Qualifiers initially scheduled from 8th to 14th April, 2020.
A new rescheduled to these above engagements according to CAF would be announced in due course.
This follows Scorpions Head Coach Tom Saintfiet’s call for the continental body to reconsider their decision going ahead with the Qualifiers citing the pandemic’s effects on countries that have the bulk of their players coming from the affected areas. “We cannot expect to play qualification games when some countries can’t use many of their best players – not because of injuries or personal reasons, but because of an international problem”, he told the BBC in an interview. Saintfiet’s appeal was shortly backed by several Coaches and National Associations across the continent for CAF to postpone the Qualifiers to a later date.
This development now means that the Gambia Men’s Senior National Team and Women’s Senior National Teams will have new dates for their Total Afcon 2021 and Total Afcon Women 2020 Qualifiers.
Nonetheless, the Events Management Committee of the GFF says the body will continue on its preparations for Gambia’s home game to Gabon anytime CAF schedules a new date for the resumption of Matches.
