The Confederation of African Football, CAF, has announced postponement of the group stage of the African 2022 World Cup qualifiers initially billed for June till September.
The decision was reached by the Emergency Committee of CAF on Thursday, a statement on CAF’s official website disclosed.
CAF based the decision on the persistent threat posed by deadly COVID-19 across the continent.
The statement read, “The CAF Emergency Committee, in consultation with FIFA, decided to postpone the CAF qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 that were due to be played in June 2021 after taking into consideration the current challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need to ensure the optimal playing conditions for all participating teams.
“The qualifiers will now take place in the existing windows of September, October and November 2021, and March 2022.
“CAF is reassessing its protocols and processes to enhance the implementation of COVID-related protocols, including specifically focusing on pre-match testing which had been the source of some challenges in previous windows.
“Full details on the updated match schedule will be provided in due course.”
The Super Eagles are in Group C with Cape Verde, Central Africa Republic and Liberia.