The Confederation of African Football has revealed draws for the qualifiers for the Rio 2016 Olympics, FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup and the U-17 Women’s World Cup. All three tournaments hold next year.
Nigeria’s U-23 team, who qualified for the 2015 All-Africa Games after beating Zambia 2-1 in Lusaka on Sunday, have been placed on a bye in the first and second rounds of the Olympic qualifiers. They will face the eventual survivors when the winners between Ghana and Liberia (in the first round) face Congo in the second round.
Nigeria’s match comes up in July, and the second leg fixture holds in August.
Seven teams that will emerge from the qualifiers will join hosts Senegal in an eight-nation U-23 African Championship.
The top three teams at the tournament will qualify for the Olympic Games.
CAF warned that all players participating in the tournament must have been born on or after January 1, 1993.
The nation’s U-20 women’s team, the Falconets, will have to battle the winners between Sierra Leone and Liberia in July in the first round of qualifiers for the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup holding in Papua New Guinea next year.
While Nigeria have been placed on a bye in the preliminary round based on their pedigree, they will have two other rounds to compete if they survive the first round.
Nigeria’s U-17 women’s team, the Flamingos, will face either of Botswana or Namibia in January 2016 in the first round of qualifiers for the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup holding in Jordan next year. Both neighbouring southern African teams are pitted against each other in the preliminary round.
Other preliminary round matches are Sierra Leone versus Gabon, and Djibouti versus DR Congo.
If Nigeria survive the first round, they will face the winners between South Africa and Zambia in March 2016.
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