Covid-hit 2020 Chan tournament gets new date
…as CAF makes major changes to calendar
The Brave Warriors of Namibia will now only get a chance to make a second appearance at the African Nations Championship (Chan) tournament early next year, after CAF announced that the 2020 edition of the competition has been moved to January 2021.
The postponement of this year’s Chan, which was initially slated for Cameroon between 4-25 April, follows a decision by CAF to make changes to their competitions in response to the impact of Covid-19.
Acting CAF general secretary Abdelmounaim Bah said the CAF Executive Committee met on 30 June and decided to move this year’s Chan to January 2021 still in Cameroon, due to the pandemic and the same groups/pools that were decided in Cameroon on 17 February 2020 will remain the same.
Namibia were drawn in Group D together with Guinea, Tanzania and Zambia. A new match programme will be communicated in due course, CAF said.
Unlike the Afcon, for Chan, the competing national teams must be composed of players plying their trade domestically. For example, a Namibian player is only eligible to play for Namibia at Chan if he is playing for a Namibian club. Morocco are the defending champions.
Meanwhile, next year’s African Cup of Nations (Afcon) has also been moved to 2022 and will still be held in Cameroon as initially planned. CAF will communicate in due course the new qualifiers schedule for the 2022 Afcon as well as the 2022 Fifa World Cup qualifiers after consulting with Fifa. Namibia face Senegal, Congo and Togo in Group H of the African leg of the World Cup qualifiers, with only the respective group winners reaching the 2022 World Cup to be held in Qatar.
The 2020 Women’s Afcon has also been cancelled but CA F confirmed that the inaugural CAF Women’s Champions League has been approved and CAF’s junior football committee will convene to draft the 2021 U/17 and U/20 Afcon qualifiers.
– ohembapu@nepc.com.na