ZURICH, Sept 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Africa’s lesser-known soccer teams will enjoy worldwide exposure in the next week after FIFA announced that their opening World Cup qualifying matches would be live-streamed on its website and on Youtube.
World soccer’s ruling body said it had invested in the production of the broadcasting feed for the games and that the initiative would give fans in Africa and around the world unprecedented access to the African qualifiers.
“Bringing this exciting action to a global audience for the first time underscores FIFA’s ongoing digital transformation and its ongoing efforts to support football development in Africa,” FIFA said, adding that it would announce which matches would be shown on its website.
Twenty-eight teams will be involved in the first round, a knockout contest where ties are played over two legs on a home-and-away basis. The 14 winners go into the group stage to join the continent’s 26 ranked teams.
The first-round ties involve two sides, Angola and Togo, who qualified for the 2006 World Cup and have since fallen down the rankings. Angola face Gambia and Togo meet Comoros.
Other matches include Somalia v Zimbabwe – with Somalia’s home leg to be played in neighbouring Djibouti – Sao Tome v Guinea-Bissau and Chad against neighbours Sudan.
Follow all the results and fixtures of the preliminary round of the African qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup (Sept 4-10)
Wednesday 4 September
15:00 Burundi vs Tanzania
15:00 Ethiopia vs Lesotho
15:00 Eritrea vs Namibia
16:00 South Sudan vs Equatorial Guinea
16:30 Mauritius vs Mozambique
17:30 Sao Tome vs Guinea Bissau
20:00 Liberia vs Sierra Leone
Thursday 5 September
16:30 Chad vs Sudan
17:00 Somalia vs Zimbabwe
22:00 Seychelles vs Rwanda
Friday 6 September
14:00 Comoros vs Togo
19:00 Gambia vs Angola
Saturday 7 September
16:00 Botswana vs Malawi
17:00 Djibouti vs Eswatini
— NNN-AGENCIES
