May 7 – A ban on several stadia across the African continent has led to the widely anticipated postponement of several World Cup qualifiers that were scheduled for June.
Earlier this week the Confederation of African Football (CAF) banned 20 of its 54 member countries from using their stadiums to host international matches because they didn’t meet “minimum requirements”.
Eight of the 40 teams competing for places in Qatar were suddenly faced with having no venue to play their home group phase games.
Those fixtures will now begin in September, the second time they have been postponed, having already been delayed from last October due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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.”
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.
The main stadiums in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya and Uganda were also ruled out, but they had alternate venues capable of hosting internationals.
The shift in 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 within an 11-week period, with the 10 group winners then advancing to the final round next March.
African football has long been blighted by poor stadium facilities and sub-standard pitches and CAF have steadily shown more resolve in banning venues, a policy stepped up under the regime of new CAF president Patrice Motsepe.
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