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Sports News of Tuesday, 20 July 2021

Source: punchng.com

CAF Deadline: NPFL clubs face heavy fixtures

The draws for both competitions would be held latest August 15 The draws for both competitions would be held latest August 15

With the draws for the preliminary round of matches for the 2021/22 CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup less than a month away, clubs in the Nigeria Professional Football League are faced with a heavy fixture schedule.

The Confederation of African Football at the end of its Executive Committee meeting, which was chaired by its president, Patrice Motsepe, on Friday in Rabat, Morocco, said the draws for both competitions would be held latest August 15.

“The kick-off will be September 10, 2021. The draw for the preliminary rounds will be made on August 15, 2021 at the latest. Bids to host the interclub finals will be open in November 2021,” CAF said in a statement on its website.

With Nigeria needing to present representatives for both competitions, NPFL clubs will have to play more than two matches per week to meet up.While the NPFL is in week 33, with five games to the end of the season, the Aiteo Cup is in the quarter-final stage.

NPFL clubs still in the Aiteo Cup are 2019 winners Kano Pillars, Sunshine Stars and Nasarawa United.

Sunshine Stars midfielder Kehinde Adedipe said as football players they were used to the stress of the game.

“There is nothing we can do about it, they have done it already, it will only cause fatigue to players and you know everybody is not the same. So, it will affect the performance of some clubs and players. Even the journey will be tedious for us.

“We left Gombe for Jos after we finished playing last night (Sunday), and we had to move early in the morning from Jos to Akure because we have a league game on Wednesday.

After the league game, we will travel the next morning for the Aiteo Cup on Friday, and then we travel back again to play a league game on Sunday. You can see that fatigue will set in, but there is nothing we can do about it, they said they have to meet CAF’s deadline, so we have to go by what they prepared for us,” Adedipe told The PUNCH.