Izuchukwu Okosi
Nigeria and 47 other African countries are set to find out their opponents as the Confederation of African Football will today (Tuesday, April 19) hold the draws for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, Cote d’Ivoire 2023 qualifying series reports Prime Business Africa.
The qualification campaign for the 2023 AFCON will begin in June 2022 and today’s draw kicks off at 5.30pm Nigerian time in Johannesburg.
The 48 countries qualified to participate in the second round of the qualifiers have been seeded into four pots based on the official FIFA ranking released on March 31, 2022.
The teams will then be drawn into 12 groups of four teams (Group A to L) with the top two teams from each group qualifying for the tournament to be played in the West African country.
Hosts Cote d’Ivoire will also participate in the draw even though they have already secured the place in the tournament which means only one other team from their group will qualify for the competition.
Kenya and Zimbabwe, who have been suspended by FIFA from all football activities globally, will also be included in the draw despite their temporary bans.
However, if the suspension is not lifted two weeks before their first matchday of the qualifiers, both associations will be considered as losers and eliminated from the competition.
Consequently, their groups will be composed of three teams with the first and runner-up teams of those groups qualifying to the final tournament.
As a result of that decision, Kenya and Zimbabwe cannot be drawn in the same group in order to avoid having one group with only two teams in case the suspension on both associations is not lifted.
Ex-South Africa international defender Lucas Radebe and former Cote d’Ivoire striker Salomon Kalou will join CAF Director of Competitions Samson Adamu for the draw.
The former Bafana Banfana defender and captain Radebe was a member of the South African team that won the 1996 TotalEnergies African Cup of Nations. He made four appearances in Africa’s flagship football competition, having played in the tournaments of 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002.
Radebe was also the captain of the South African national football team during both the 1998 FIFA World Cup and the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
Kalou, the former Chelsea player, was a key attacker for the Elephants when they won the AFCON in 2015 in Equatorial Guinea.
The former Chelsea forward scored five goals in the six appearances in the tournament as he featured in the 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017 editions of the continental showpiece event.typically
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
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