The Confederation of African Football says the 2021 Afcon tournament to be held in Cameroon in January will go on as planned despite the spread of Covid-19.

The football body has already suspended competition qualifiers which had been set for this week while the Chan tournament which was initially scheduled for April was moved back due to the pandemic which has taken nearly 20,000 lives to date.

Acting general secretary Abdelmounaim Bah believes the Afcon qualifiers can still be completed within the remaining international windows for 2020, thus, there is no basis for a postponement at this stage.

According to Goal.com, Bah said: “For now, the Africa Cup of Nations is still scheduled for January to February 2021.

“The only reason we would shift Afcon would be a situation [Covid-19] that continues into the year 2021 and if this current crisis does not allow us to play all the qualification matches.

“We still have four qualifying days to play and we can play them in two international windows.

“We have four at our disposal: June, September, October, November. At this point, anything is possible.

“If we can’t play matchdays three and four in June, we will play them otherwise in September or October and we will play matchdays five and six in November.”

The Afcon 2021 edition is scheduled to take place fromJanuary 9 to February 6, 2021.