Flying Eagles To Participate In All Africa Games.
In what could be regarded as a policy summersault, the Confederation of Africa Football, CAF has invited Nigeria’s Under 20 national team, the Flying Eagles to participate in the 2019 All Africa Games holding in Morocco in September, Bestchoicesports.com.ng can report authoritatively.
CAF last week made changes in the qualifications for the All African Games scrapping Under 23 football team event and replacing same with Under 20.
Consequently, the Africa football governing body has now invited the seven Under 20 male team that participated in the last edition of Under 20 AFCON earlier this year to play at the African Games in Morocco in September this year.
The multisport event, formerly called the All-Africa Games, normally features under-23 sides in the men’s football tournament.
Teams were due to earn a place at the games through a joint qualifying campaign with the Under-23 Africa Cup of Nations.
However Caf has now postponed the final round of qualifiers for the under-23 tournament until September with the African Games due to take place in August.
Caf has moved the matches, which should have been played in June, “due to the proximity of the initial dates to the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt from 21 June to 19 July.”
Caf has now invited all the teams from the Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations to Morocco, with the exception of Niger who hosted the finals.
As hosts Morocco’s under-20 side will play instead of Niger and they will be joined by Burundi, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, South Africa and Senegal.
The teams will have to confirm their participation by 20 May.
It means there could be a busy schedule for African under-20 champions Mali as well as South Africa, Nigeria and Senegal. who are all heading to play at the World Cup in Poland later this year.
However, I response to this paper’s text message requesting for clarification on the invitation to Flying Eagles, head of Nigeria Football Federation communication, Ademola Olajire said he was not aware of the invitation adding that “CAF are not the organisers of the All Africa Game.”