The Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Ahmad Ahmad has hinted that the Africa Cup of Nations may be switched back to the January/February calendar instead of the current June/July format.

In a report published on Monday Inside world football revealed that the Malagasy boss prefers the January/February format because it appears to be more practical due to climatic conditions and the introduction of the revamped FIFA Club World Cup that is supposed to kick off in summer 2021.

“When we took the decision to move the Africa Cup of Nations to June, which we did for the last tournament in Egypt, we have always said that we need to have some flexibility over the dates,” Inside world football quoted Ahmad as saying during a breakfast conversation, hours before the final of the FIFA Club World Cup.

“This is because of the different climatic conditions in the continent. I don’t know why the media has forgotten that this was discussed in detail at the 2017 CAF symposium that we had in Morocco.

“In my view, it is not possible, because of the climatic conditions in Cameroon, to stage the Africa Cup of Nations in June/July. This is clear, so we must take a decision on the date,” Ahmad added.

The CAF chief also revealed that a decision would be taken during the next meeting of the executive committee.

The Africa Cup of Nations was traditionally held in January/February but was switched to summer by a decision from the executive committee on 20 July 2017. Egypt hosted the first expanded version of the competition in its new June/July format.

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