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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter 

The Caf emergency committee has postponed all upcoming Fifa World Cup qualifiers after taking into consideration challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a statement Caf said the qualifiers will now take place between September and November this year.

“The Caf emergency committee, in consultation with Fifa, decided to postpone the Caf qualifiers for the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 that were due to be played in June 2021 after taking into consideration the current challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the need to ensure the optimal playing conditions for all participating teams.

The qualifiers will now take place in the existing windows of September, October and November 2021, and March 2022.

Caf is reassessing its protocols and processes to enhance the implementation of Covid-related protocols, including specifically focusing on pre-match testing which had been the source of some challenges in previous windows. Full details on the updated match schedule will be provided in due course,” reads the full Caf statement.

Zimbabwe were scheduled to take on neighbours South Africa on the weekend of June 5-8 and a few days later fly to Ethiopia.

The technical team had on Thursday morning announced a 30-member squad made up of 27 foreign-based players and three locally-based for the qualifiers.