Apparently not ready to risk the lives of players, officials and other stakeholders during the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, the Executive Committee of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) on Tuesday cancelled the 2020 African Women’s Cup of Nations (AWCON).
This was one of the many crucial decisions taken by the Executive Committee headed by CAF President, Ahmad Ahmad during a video-conference Executive Meeting held Tuesday, June 30, 2020.
The Committee which also discussed the future of competitions and other related issues following the disruption of football activities across the world including Africa by the COVID-19 pandemic opted to cancel the 2020 AWCON.
“Due to challenging conditions, the 2020 edition of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations has been cancelled”, CAF said in the statement made available to journalists.
Meanwhile, the proposed CAF Women’s Champions League will be launched in 2021 while the format and other details relating to the novel club football competition will be communicated to the stakeholders in due course.
Newsmen report that the Executive Committee did not however say anything about the 2020 FIFA U-17 and U-20 Women’s World Cup African qualifying matches which stopped at the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic last February.
Although FIFA has postponed the two youth competitions to January and March, 2021, CAF did not say how it will select African representatives even as Nigeria’s Flamingos are two matches away from booking their ticket for the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in India before Covid-19 halted football activities globally.
Also, Nigeria’s Falconets were set to start the U-20 African qualifiers last March against the Burkina Faso U-20 national women’s football team but trip was aborted because of the pandemic.
It remains to be seen if CAF will not present teams for the two FIFA Women’s World Cup competitions early next year.
