2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games officially postponed

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced that after careful consideration, the 2020 Olympic Games have been postponed for no later than the summer of 2021 because of the COVID-19 virus. The IOC had been holding out hope much later than many international competitions, but the recent announcements from countries like Canada and Australia that they weren’t going to send an Olympic delegation if the games were held in 2021 finally forced the IOC to postpone the games.

The COVID-19 virus has wreaked havoc all throughout the world, and every major sporting competition has been affected by it. While the IOC had hoped the virus would have waned for July when the tournament was going to take place in Tokyo, the fact is a lot of competitions hadn’t even completed the qualifiers for the competition. One of those was Concacaf, which would have held the U23 Championship in Guadalajara during these dates before it was suspended. Concacaf was the only confederation that hadn’t held their qualifiers. There is no word yet from FIFA on what changes will happen because of the postponement. The most important thing is what would the postponement mean for the U23 players. Since the tournament will be held in 2021, this means a lot of players that were eligible for the tournament in 2020 won’t be eligible for 2021 if it remains an U23 tournament since they will have turned 24. With the COVID-19 virus emergency still going on, there is no word yet of when Concacaf will hold their championship or if Mexico will continue to host it.