Africa

BERN — The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to cost club football $14 billion this year worldwide, around one third of its value, a leading official at global soccer body FIFA said on Wednesday.

Olli Rehn, who heads the FIFA committee set up to tackle the effects of the pandemic, said that FIFA, along with financial consultants, had estimated the club game to be worth between $40 billion and $45 billion worldwide.

Zambia's football association (FAZ) said it will end its domestic season on Aug. 6, just weeks after it restarted, due to clubs failing to adhere to COVID-19 protocols.

FAZ had hoped to complete the Super League season following its resumption on July 18 but said on Friday only two more rounds are to be played before champions are declared with all teams having played 27 of their 34 scheduled matches.

Any teams unable to fulfil their remaining fixtures would forfeit the points.

The return of the Zambian Super League on Saturday has been put on hold after leaders Forest Rangers revealed that 28 players and staff had tested positive for COVID-19.

Rangers said on Saturday morning, hours before the scheduled re-start of the 2019-20 campaign, that they had 28 positive tests out of 58 conducted at the club ahead of their clash with Zanaco in Ndola.

Seventeen of the positive cases are players, this despite a club social media post on Tuesday, which has since been edited, that said all tests had come back negative.

CAPE TOWN — Next January's 2021 Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon has been postponed by one year and will now take place in 2022, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) decided on Tuesday.

The COVID-19 health crisis has suspended football across most of the continent since March and left little time to complete the qualification competition, said CAF president Ahmad Ahmad at a news conference.

The Cup of Nations was due to be held from Jan. 9-Feb. 6 next year but will now be scheduled for January 2022.

NAIROBI — The captain of Uganda's national football team said on Tuesday he and his team mates are seeking clarity on a $1 million pledge that President Yoweri Museveni made to the players last year after their participation in the 2019 African Cup of Nations.

The cash pledged would be shared among the players and help them deal with the financial struggles caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, said Denis Onyango, who was voted the best African-based player of 2016.

CAPE TOWN — Thursday marks 10 years since South Africa hosted a World Cup highly charged with symbolism but dogged by questions about the wisdom of spending billions on a sports event that might have been better used elsewhere.

Hosting the first soccer World Cup in Africa was seen as a coming of age for the embattled continent.

But the month-long tournament, which had a $3-billion (USD) price tag, also came at a time when the country faced an enormous backlog of social needs such as housing, hospitals, water and electricity.