Rohr Commends CAF for Shifting AFCON to 2022
It is a wise decision instead of playing next summer
Super Eagles Head Coach, Gernot Rohr, has commended the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for moving the next Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) from January next year to 2022.
The AFCON 2021 was earlier scheduled to hold between January and February next year in Cameroon but the coronavirus pandemic that has disrupted all sporting calendars, including the qualification series of the tournament caused CAF to yesterday push forward the edition till January 2022.
The German gaffer who led Nigeria to a bronze medal finish at the last edition in Egypt last year believes the new dates will enable him more time to get his wards ready to go for their fourth African top football title.
“I think this is a wise decision because time is very short now and they could not postpone to the summer,” Rohr told BBC
Sport Africa yesterday from his base in Europe.
“I can understand this decision - we have more time now to prepare our young boys. It is not all bad.
While admitting 2022 will be a busy year for African teams as it coincides with the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Rohr is nonetheless unfazed as Super Eagles will have ample time to play enough friendly game for his young team to jell into top contenders in the continent.
“There is a positive side in all this and we have time for some friendlies and also for the beginning of the World Cup qualifiers - normally we will begin in November with this, and I think we can follow the plan and still have time to the Afcon qualifiers starting in October, so it is a wise decision and it will be a big year in 2022.”
Also, the African Nations Championship (CHAN), which should have been played in April, will now take place in January 2021. Cameroon is scheduled to host both competitions.
CAF arrived at the decision to postpone the AFCON 2021 by one year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, while the women’s version of the tournament has been cancelled altogether.
While throwing light on the decision to shift the AFCON 2021 by one year, CAF President, Ahmad Ahmad said the matter of health was top priority before any other thing.
“Health is our number one priority. We must remain vigilant,” stressed the CAF president at a news conference to announce the postponement yesterday.
The postponement means the biannual tournament will now be in the same year as the 2022 World Cup - something that last happened in 2010 when Angola hosted the continental fiesta and South Africa was the venue for the big Mundial party in Africa for the first time. And they made a show of it.
AFCON was moved to oddnumbered years in 2013 - that year’s tournament coming only a year after the previous one - to avoid such clashes, which risked disadvantaging African teams at the World Cup by giving them such an extended season of competition.
Late Stephen Keshi went into history books as the second African player and coach to win the competition in South Africa in 2013.
Traditionally held in January, the most recent Africa Cup of Nations, in 2019, was moved to the summer in an effort to avoid clashing with the major European league competitions.
This was meant to be the case for the Cameroon tournament as well, but that was then changed back to January owing to climate conditions in the country and a potential clash with the Club World Cup.
About to be crowned English Premier League champions Liverpool will be the most beneficiary of the postponement of the AFCON to 2022 as the Reds will play all of next season without losing their key strike force of Senegal’s Sadio Mane and Egypt’s Mohamed Salah to international duty. In addition to Naby Keita, Liverpool would have lost these key players for six weeks in 2020-21 had the tournament gone ahead as planned.
For Africa’s top players though, 2022 is set to be an exhausting year. Along with their club commitments, many will start the year with the Africa Cup of Nations and then end it with a World Cup in Qatar.
Meanwhile, the cancellation of the women’s Africa Cup of Nations comes as little surprise given the tournament had no host, while not one qualifier had been played.
There was however a boost for the women’s game with the launch of a new Women’s Champions League for Africa in 2021.