With the Covid-19 pandemic continuing to thwart the staging of international football, the FIFA Council is set to meet tomorrow via video conference to discuss several pertinent matters, with Agenda Item No.5 being the subject of the Men’s International Calendar.
This was disclosed by CONCACAF officials during a recent interview via their website. According to CONCACAF, the status of FIFA International Window will be discussed at the conference, as Agenda Item No.5 listed as Men’s International Match Calendar.
This will provide clarity on the way forward for several confederations especially CONCACAF on a possible timeline for the resumption of international play and the formats and qualifying methods that can be utilised for events that are scheduled to resume such as Gold Cup Qualifying Playoff and the Nations League Campaign.
CONCACAF has suspended several tournaments due to the ongoing contagion. Among the other international tournaments postponed include the Girls U15 Championship, the Girls U17 Championship, the Men’s U17 Football Qualifiers and the Men’s U20 Tournament. The regional body has also opted to suspend the Scotiabank U13 Club Champions League until 2021.
Guyana was set to face-off against Barbados in a home and away series on March 26th and 31st respectively in the Gold Cup Qualifiers. The first match was to be held in Barbados with the Golden Jaguars to host the return leg five days later at the National Track and Field Center, Leonora
With the two international windows already passed [March 23rd-31st and June 1st-9th], scheduling is expected to be an issue the longer the ongoing Covd-19 situation persists. The other international dates are August 31st-September 8th, October 5th-13th and November 9th-17th. A revised international window is expected to be presented after the conclusion of the FIFA meeting by the various confederations.
CONCACAF has already hinted at the possibility of restructuring their FIFA World Cup Qualifying format, with the possibility of altering or removing the Hexagonal round [final round of qualifiers] a real possibility, as an avenue to ensure that the qualifying period occurs in the limited timespan that is expected.
According to United States Soccer Federation technical director Earnie Stewart, “There’s no decisions made and there’s a lot of scenarios out there right now of what that needs to look like. Nobody knows what we have ahead of us. We’ve already missed out on the March dates. We’ve missed out on the June dates. It kind of looks like the September dates at [this] moment might not be there either. The possibility of qualifying and losing FIFA dates comes closer and closer. FIFA is talking about adding dates as well. Nobody knows the dates as of today and how many FIFA dates there will be going forward.”
