Caf agrees to postpone March Nations Cup qualifiers for Nigeria and other World Cup-bound teams

NIGERIA'S African Nations Cup qualification match against Seychelles in March next year has been postponed until October by the Confederation of African Football (Caf) to enable the Super Eagles concentrate on their World Cup preparations.

Like every other Caf member, Nigeria was due to play a qualification match in March but with the World Cup starting in June, the Nigerian Football Federation requested that the game be moved to a later date. NFF president Amaju Pinnick wrote to Caf along with Africa's four other World Cup participants requesting that Nations Cup qualifiers be postponed.

Accepting their plea, Caf, has agreed to move next year’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers to October to allow the continent’s World Cup finalists play friendlies in March. Nigeria, Senegal, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco are the five African teams representing the continent at Russia 2018 and they want to use the March Fifa window to prepare for the tournament.

Super Eagles spokesman Toyin Ibitoye, said: “African teams to the World Cup will now have the March 2018 Fifa international days for friendly games after the Caf executive committee approved a proposal by Nigeria for 2019 African Nations Cup qualifiers fixed for that period moved to October 2018.  The 2019 African Nations Cup will now be played in June 2019 as against January when the match schedule was announced, so there is more time now for the qualifiers to be concluded.”

Mr Ibitoye said Nigeria, which would have played Seychelles in March 2018, now plan two friendlies in that period to prepare for the World Cup. It is not yet clear who the Super eagles will play in March but head coach Gernot Rohr is hoping for matched against high profile teams.

Earlier this week, the Eagles played Argentina in the Russian city of Krasnodar beating the South American giants 4-2. They also used the opportunity to visit some of the World Cup facilities and get to grips with the logistics the Russians laid on.