Ghana will play at the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon in 2022 instead of next year after the tournament was postponed by one year because of the coronavirus.
CAF's Executive Committee voted unanimously on Tuesday to postpone the tournament to 2022 because of the calendar disruption brought by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Black Stars players discovered the new dates for the flagship competition when the Executive Committee of CAF met today in an online meeting.
Africa's flagship football competition will now take place in Cameroon in January 2022 after all members of the Executive Committee voted in favour of the motion.
This means the tournament will be played in the same year as the World Cup in Qatar which will serve as good preparation for African sides playing in the global competition.
The Cup of Nations was originally set for Cameroon from Jan 9-Feb 6 next year but the plans were severely disrupted by the outbreak of the disease that has killed 500, 000 people worldwide.
Qualifiers are still far from complete and national team football on the continent is not due to resume before October in the wake of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
There are still four rounds of qualifiers to play which means CAF must adjust their calendar given the days lost in the qualifiers because of the break brought about by the pandemic.
FIFA’s decision last week to cancel September’s window for national team matches in all regions, except Europe and South America, left CAF with fewer dates to try and complete the competition’s qualifying campaign before the year of the year to finalise the field for the 24-team tournament.
They qualifiers could now be scheduled for October and November and that would mean having to postpone the start of the group phase of 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
The Black Stars were hoping they would resume their matches in Group C of the qualifiers by July to seal an early qualification for the tournament to be held in Cameroon.
But the two back-to-back qualifiers against Sudan were postponed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic that ravaged the world and affected sports competitions worldwide.
The pandemic hit all football competitions in the world and led to postponements in all international competitions but with the easing of restrictions and the resumption of competitions hopes were raised for the Black Stars that the matches could be played in the coming weeks.
The West Africans have been in fantastic form in the qualifiers defeating South Africa and Sao Tome and Principe in their opening two matches in the tricky group.
Wins against Sudan in two back-to-back qualifiers originally scheduled for March could have sealed early qualification for the Black Stars to play in Africa's flagship football competition.