CAF shifts AFCON 2023 qualifiers

by Graeme Jackson

Monday Aug 01, 2022. 13:00

The Confederation of African Football has decided to shift the remaining matchdays in the qualifiers for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations to help the continent’s five World Cup-bound teams.

Matchdays three and four were slated to be played in September, with matchday five and six in March of next year.

However, the CAF Executive Committee has taken the decision to push back both sets of fixtures in the group stage to help Senegal, Morocco, Ghana, Tunisia and Cameroon in their preparation for the 2022 World Cup, which begins in Qatar in November 2021.

The move makes even more sense given CAF’s recent postponement of the next AFCON from mid-2023 to early 2024, mainly due to climatic conditions in host nation Ivory Coast.

“This [decision] was necessitated by the Executive Committee’s commitment to make room for the African nations that have qualified for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 in November/ December 2022 to prepare adequately,” CAF explained in a statement.

“Consequently, the September 2022 TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations Cote d’Ivoire matchday three and matchday four qualifiers have been moved to 20-28 March 2023.

“Matchday five will now be on 12-20 June 2023 while matchday six will be played on 4-12 September 2023.”