After a meeting of CAF’s Emergency Committee on Monday, March 8th, the governing body for football in Africa, alongside the Moroccan FA have cancelled the Total U-17 African Cup of Nations.
CAF named several reasons for the decision, as it cited FIFA’s cancellation of the U-17 AFCON, and the COVID-19 pandemic as top of its reasons.
CAF said after it spoke to the Moroccan FA, it cancelled the tournament, which already had at least four nations in the country getting ready for the opener.
According to CAF, some football federations also revealed their constraints, and are limited in their desire to make it to the competition.
CAF’s decision has come under the spotlight, especially with Morocco being in the mirror again. It is not the North African country’s first cancellation at the death, with some football stakeholders on the continent saying that it was not a decision made in good faith.
In the last two months, CAF has hosted the African Nations Championship in Cameroon and the U-20 Cup of African Nations in Mauritania.
Morocco has 486,000 cases of COVID-19 and has recorded 8,682 deaths. Their case fatality rate stands at 1.7%, a figure lower than Africa’s average of 2.6%.
