Ex-Super Falcons Star Blasts CAF As 2024 WAFCON Gets New Date

Ex-Super Falcons Star, Desire Oparanozie, believes football authorities in Africa are not prioritizing women’s football as CAF postponed the 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (2024 WAFCON).

On Friday, June 21, CAF announced that the 2024 WAFCON has been postponed from this summer to July 2025, even though the qualification series was completed over one month ago.

With the new development, the qualified teams will have to wait for 18 months before the 2024 WAFCON will commence in Morocco.

CAF postponed the tournament from this summer to next summer because two qualified teams, Nigeria and Zambia, will be representing Africa at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris from July to August.

This is not the first time women’s football has suffered such a setback. Recall that the 2020 WAFCON was cancelled, while the men’s edition was postponed to 2021.

Note that CAF had to move the 2025 AFCON from the June-July slot, which has been taken by the extended 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, to December 2025 and January 2026. But the 2024 WAFCON didn’t enjoy such a short postponement.

“Not having this tournament when we should have it is going to take us maybe 10 steps backwards,” Oparanozie told BBC before CAF announced the postponement of the 2024 WAFCON.

“When it comes to women’s football, we’re still trying to get to where we need to be.

“I think, first of all, it’s [a] lack of prioritising women’s football in Africa because you can’t tell me it’s the same thing when it comes to the men.”