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Grace Chingoma Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE’S Warriors, once again conspicuous by their absence from the ongoing African Cup of Nations showpiece, will now focus on the 2017 tournament for which they will know the identity of their opponents next month when they go into the draw for the qualifiers with 51 other teams.

Although the draw is set for April 8, when the 2017 hosts will also be announced, the qualifying marathon will begin in June under a new format that was announced by the Confederation of African Football yesterday.

According to the continental body’s website www.cafonline.com, the Caf executive also announced the format for the qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup which will begin in October.

Caf also made a strange decision and announced that, for the first time, the Nations Cup hosts will be involved in qualifying matches but the matches involving the 2017 hosts will be treated as friendlies and the group in which that hosting team would be involved in will effectively be counted as having three teams.

This means should the Warriors be drawn in the same group with the 2017 hosts, they will not have a chance to fight for the best runners-up slot, which will be accorded to the other four team groups.

“The Caf executive committee has approved the format of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, following its meeting on January 14, 2015. The host country of the 2017 edition shall be announced on April 8, 2015 after the Caf Ordinary General Assembly in Cairo, Egypt.

“The qualifiers for the 31st edition of the Africa Cup of Nations will begin in June 2015 using the two dates fixed by Fifa, June 8-16.
“For the first time, the host country will participate in the qualifying stages, though the matches concerned will not be computed for points, they shall count as friendlies.

“Fifty-two teams will be engaged. They will be divided into 13 groups of four teams each. The first from each group shall qualify for the final stage, as well as the best two runners-up, exclusive of the group of the host country, which only one team will qualify.

“Also, if due to the withdrawal of one team and a group happens to be left with just three teams, this group will not be considered when determining the best second team,” read part of the Caf statement.

Caf also outlined the format that will be used to qualify for Africa’s five slots at the 2018 World Cup in Russia in which all competing teams will first have to negotiate their way to the group stage of the qualifiers by overcoming three preliminary  rounds.

“The competing teams will have to go through three preliminary rounds in order to bring the number of teams down to 20 so as to be able to constitute five groups of four teams, where the first from each group will qualifier for the World Cup.

“The preliminaries of the Fifa World Cup shall begin during the two Fifa dates in October 2015, given that the draws shall take place on July 25, 2015 at Saint-Petersburg in Russia,” Caf said.

For the 2015 Nations Cup, whose qualifiers were played last year, lowly-ranked teams like Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland and Tanzania started at the preliminary stage with the winners proceeding to the first round and later joining top 21 countries like Algeria, Ghana, Zambia, Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa, Cameroon and Nigeria in the group qualifiers.

Although the format for the 2017 tournament would appear straightforward, as teams will start from the group stages, nothing can be guaranteed about the Warriors anymore given the depths to which this team has sunk.

National Under-23 coach Callisto Pasuwa, who has been given the mandate to rebuild the Warriors, also looks set to be still in charge by the time the Nations Cup qualifiers burst into life.

Yesterday ZIFA chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze hinted that the former Dynamos coach, who is being assisted by ZPC Kariba’s Saul Chaminuka and Nation Dube of Hwange in the Young Warriors set up, would remain in charge by the time the Nations Cup qualifiers start.

“In terms of the technical appointments the status quo remains. We will get their training programme which already has the All-Africa Games and the Olympic qualifiers. We believe the national team should be able to adjust to any format which comes from the organisers (Caf).

“We will stand by the technical team but by and large the core of our national team is that of the Olympic team as they are young and hungry for success but everything depends with the coaches,” said Mashingaidze.

The indications by Mashingaidze that they will stick with Pasuwa means that he will be the eighth coach under the Cuthbert Dube leadership to preside over the Warriors’ Nations Cup bid.

Pasuwa has been tasked with ensuring that Zimbabwe qualify for the All-Africa Games in Congo later this year and the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil next year.

The Young Warriors will begin their quest for places at the All-Africa Games and the Olympics by facing the same opponents – Swaziland – in the preliminary round stage.

Caf have set the African Under-23 Championships as the platform for qualification for the Olympics with the top four teams from the continental championships securing places to represent Africa in Brazil.