Eagles draw Rwanda in 2013 qualifiers

A few hours after the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF told Samsoa Siasia to step aside as the Super Eagles Chief Coach, the Confederation of African Football, CAF Friday announced that Nigeria will begin the race for the 2013 ticket against Rwanda in January.

Two other 2012 failures Egypt and Cameroon were also drawn to face Central African Republic and Guinea-Bissau respectively while the remaining big loser in the 2012 campaign, South Africa were exempted from the preliminary match-ups as they qualify automatically as host of the first Nations Cup in odd  years.

Interestingly both Nigeria and Rwanda are looking for new coaches. The NFF could not name a replacement for Siasia after their emergency meeting in Abuja Friday as its Technical Department was mandated to meet on Tuesday to recommend one for the even though former Eagles skipper said he was already having talks with NFF boss, Aklhaji Aminu Maigari on the issue.

The announcement of the preliminary match-ups came before the draws for the 2012 edition scheduled for Equatorial Guinea/Gabon were made in Malabo last night and CAF has said that 15 countries who make it from the preliminary match-ups will battle all the 16 teams from the Equatorial Guinea/Gabon edition who got a bye to the final round of qualifiers.

To start with Seychelles will play Swaziland and Sao Tome will take on Lesotho in double-headed ties for the right to go into the preliminary draw.

Then there are 14 head-to-head ties to determine who goes forward to the final round, where the 16 teams who made it to the 2012 event will join the race for 2013.

The opening rounds of the campaign will take place in early 2012 and the final round of qualifying will happen in September and October next year.