The world football body FIFA confirmed on Thursday that the 2022 World Cup qualifiers scheduled for Africa during June have been postponed until September due to the coronavirus and stadiums not meeting international standards.
CAF said in a statement that the decision was made in
conjunction with FIFA “taking into consideration the current disruption caused
by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to ensure optimal playing conditions for
all teams."
The qualifiers were scheduled to begin in early June, having
already been postponed from October last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But CAF this week issued a list of approved stadiums for the
first two rounds of qualifiers, which left a quarter of the 40 teams competing
for places in Qatar 2022 without a venue to play their home matches.
Those affected include Senegal, who competed at the last
World Cup in Russia in 2018, and Mali, who were among the top-seeded teams for
the preliminaries.
Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Liberia, Malawi,
Namibia, Niger and Sierra Leone have all also been affected.
There has also been concern over travel restrictions placed
on players coming from Europe, many of whom had to sit out March’s final round
of qualifiers for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations due to some host countries
being on the ‘red lists’ of European nations due to the pandemic.
The shift in the calendar means there will now be two rounds
of World Cup qualifiers in each of the FIFA international windows in September,
October and November this year, essentially concluding the group phase in 11
weeks.
The 10 group winners will then advance to the final playoff
stage in March, which is contested on a home and away basis, where the five
victors will earn their place in Qatar.
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