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WHY CAF CHANGED 2019 AFCON DATES

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As earlier reported by www.sportsvillagesquare.com, the dates for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations have been pushed back by a week.

It was originally scheduled to hold from June 7 to June 30, 2019. It will now hold from June 21 to July 20, 2019.

This is confirmed from the communiqué released on Monday by CAF following the Saturday meeting of the Emergency Committee of CAF.

Sports Village Square gathered that the dates were changed at the instance of North African teams that have qualified. They are Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria along with the hosts, Egypt.

The shift in date is anchored on fact that the original date fell within the holy month of Ramadan which will have some effects on Muslim players.

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RELATED STORY: https://www.sportsvillagesquare.com/2019/01/27/caf-changes-afcon-2019-dates/

An AFP report quoted a chieftain of Egypt 2019, Mohamed Fadl as saying: “CAF has officially informed us of the postponement (of the original dates).”

“The decision was taken following requests from the Maghreb countries of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria who want their players to have time to rest after the end of Ramadan.”

Ramadan, in which Muslims abstain from food and water from sunrise to sunset, will this year be observed from the start of May until the beginning of June.

The 2019 Africa Cup of Nations will for the first time this year take place in the summer and feature 24 teams rather than sixteen.

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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