Gambia’s hopes on hold as CAF puts off finals of its 2021 African Nations Cup for a year

Head Coach Tom Saintfiet was hoping to guide Gambia’s scorpions to their first-ever AFCON appearance in 2021

Next year’s African Nations Cup has been postponed until January 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cameroon remains the host, according to the African Football Confederation.

CAF president Ahmad Ahmad said: “Health is our No1 priority. We must remain vigilant.”

The African Nations Championship – known as CHAN, for domestically-based players – has been shifted from this past April to next January 2021. The African Women’s Nations Cup has been cancelled.

CAF had planned to shift the Nations Cup to the June/July slot because of problems obtained the release of players from European clubs in January and February. However that was delayed when FIFA has planned to stage its expanded Club World Cup in 2021.

Nigeria coach Gernot Rohr told BBC Sport Africa.”I think this is a wise decision because time is very short now and they could not postpone to the summer. I can understand this decision. We have more time now to prepare our young boys. It is not all bad.

“We also have time for some friendlies and 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.”

The postponement comes at a time when some of Africa's less-heralded footballing nations are on the rise, with Gambia, notably, delivering remarkable performances.

Gambia, ranked No. 159 in the world, just missed qualification last time around, but they have begun this campaign with an away victory against Angola and a 2-2 draw at home with the Democratic Republic of Congo, world-ranked No. 54, to sit atop Group D.

The triumph in Luanda was their first competitive victory in 36 years, and they were arguably unfortunate not to have beaten the Congolese after the referee missed Marcel Tisserand 's handball in the box and also dubiously ruling out an Omar Colley goal for offside.