The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has today 30th June, 2020, made the decision to postpone the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations to January/February 2022.
Cameroon were set to host the competition in January/February 2021.
The decision was taken after CAF’s video conference meeting earlier on Tuesday.
The 2020 Championship of African Nations (CHAN) which was originally scheduled for April 2020 in Cameroon has also been shifted to January 2021 while the 2020 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations, set to be hosted by the Republic of Congo in December this year, has been cancelled outright.
The postponement and cancellation of events has been necessitated by the outbreak of the coronavirus which forced CAF to suspend all of its competitions including qualifying events earlier in March 2020.
CAF’s inter-club competitions, the CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup, which were at the semi final stage when football wa suspended, will also now feature one legged affairs in September and will take place in Cameroon and Morocco respectively.
The CAF Champions League semi final and final events (Raja Casablanca vs Zamalek, Wydad Casablanca vs Al Ahly) will take place in Cameroon while the Confederation Cup semis and finals (Pyramids vs Horoya, RS Berkane vs Hassania Agadir ) will take place in Morocco.
CAF will also launch the Women’s Champions League competition in 2021 which will feature a CAF inter-club women’s football competition for the first time.
The change in dates means there will be two Africa Cup of Nations in consecutive years, with the 2022 AFCON and 2023 AFCON sandwiched by the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
With the qualifying series for AFCON 2022, AFCON 2023, and the World Cup 2022 all yet to be played, African players are set for a busy next 3 years.