Uganda Cranes head coach Johnny McKinstry has played down fears that  the decision to change qualifying dates for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2022 World Cup may negatively affect Uganda Cranes Plans in regard to game preparation.

The dates were moved after Caf’s decision to bring forward the 2021 Nations Cup finals in Cameroon from June-July to January-February because of unfavorable weather conditions in the host country.

As such, the 2021 Nations Cup qualifiers which were due to resume in August will now be played in March, June and August/September while auditions for the 2022 World Cup  were moved to October.

“It doesn’t have much of an impact really, because we always knew when the Fifa windows were,” McKinstry said before adding.

“Previously we had anticipated we would be having World Cup qualifiers in March and June, with the Afcon games resuming in September, so we were expecting competitive games.”

“Now with Afcon games being brought forward, this means that as soon as that happened, we were able to start preparing for South Sudan games; in terms of various analyses – their strengths and weaknesses,” he added.

Uganda drew Kenya, Rwanda, and Mali in the 2022 World Cup qualifying draws.

Meanwhile, in the 2021 Nations Cup qualifiers, they are in the same group with South Sudan, Malawi and Burkina Faso.