2018 W/Cup: CAF Shift AFCON Qualifiers For Nigeria, Others

African football apex body, Confederation of African Football (CAF) have approved the request made by the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), to move the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers scheduled for March next year to another date for teams through to the next year’s FIFA World Cup in Russia.

Nigeria, Senegal, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia will be Africa’s five flag bearers at Russia next year and all five nations were to be engaged in AFCON 2019 in the next FIFA window in March and this would have been the last window before the World Cup in June.

Recall that last Tuesday a Nigerian official said that the NFF President Amaju Pinnick had proposed to CAF that the next FIFA window should now be used by the World Cup finalists to prepare for world football’s showpiece tournament.

The 2019 AFCON qualifiers will now be played in October 2018 as approved by CAF.

Which now means that all the African countries participating the World Cup will now use the FIFA free window in March ahead of the Mundial in June to feature in international friendlies.

According to the Super Eagles media officer, Toyin Ibitoye, Nigeria will play two high-profile friendlies in March, 2018 in continuation of their preparations for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

“Yes, the 2019 AFCON qualifiers have been postponed, the Super Eagles will play two grade A friendlies in March,” Ibitoye told Completesportsnigeria.com.