Following the new date for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations which has been moved to January from the previous June date, the World Cup qualifying matches originally scheduled for March this year have been moved to October.
The original Match Day 1 for the World Cup qualifiers in March will now be replaced with the Match Day 3 of the Africa Cup of Nations.
Consequently, Nigeria will now have a back-to-back fixtures with Sierra Leone in the next FIFA window of March 23 to March 31.
Instead of just a World Cup qualifying match, the week will witness two Africa Cup of Nations qualifying games.
Nigeria will host the first leg. The venue is however uncertain as Benin, which the Nigeria Football Federation originally penciled down to host the Super Eagles will be hosting the National Sports Festival at the time.
Also, the World Cup Match Day 2 which, was originally fixed to hold in the week of June 1 to 9 will now be converted to that of Afcon qualifying Match Day 5.
The original Match Day 3 of Afcon qualifiers slated for August 31 to September 8 will now witness Match Day 6 and final qualifying matches.
The previously Match Day 5 of October 5 to 13 will now be that of Match Day 1 of World Cup qualifiers.
The next match day for the World Cup qualifier is November 9-17. That was the period originally penciled down for the final Afcon 2021 qualifiers.
The match days 3 and 4 of the World Cup qualifier will now be March 22 to 30 2021 after the final tournament of the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon.
The Match Day 5 of the World Cup qualifiers will be August 30 to September 7, 2021 while the Match Day 6 will be October 4 to 12.
The final qualifiers, which will be on knockout basis will hold in the week of November 8 to 16, 2021.
