CAF Postpones Champions League Semi Final And Final

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has postponed this year’s Champions League final and the semi-final second leg between Egypt’s Zamalek and Raja Casablanca of Morocco.

This is the fourth time CAF will make adjustments to the schedule of the competition since the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Raja’s trip to Cairo for Sunday’s contest against Zamalek was in doubt after an outbreak of Covid-19 at the club in the run-up to the fixture.

CAF had already postponed the match from last weekend after eight Raja players tested positive for coronavirus.

That number rose to 14 following another round of testing. Raja were set to carry out more tests on Thursday and were scheduled to leave for Egypt on Friday.

The final itself, which was set to take place in Egypt on Friday 6 November, has now also been moved after Egyptian authorities separately expressed concerns about the timing of both the semi-final and final because of parliamentary elections in Egypt.

Caef says no new dates have yet been decided for either of the games, with “official discussions” underway between stakeholders.

The Moroccan champions lost 1-0 to Zamalek in the first leg in Casablanca earlier this month and are battling to meet another Egyptian side, Al Ahly, in the final.

Fulfilling the 2019-2020 Champions League season has proven extremely challenging for CAF because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The final was originally scheduled to be played in May, before being moved back to October and then to November.

This latest postponement throws the start of the 2020-21 edition which had been scheduled to start in November with the preliminaries in doubt.