Concacaf announces Guadalajara to remain as Olympic qualifiers host.

Concacaf has announced that the 2021 pre-Olympic qualifiers will be held in Guadalajara, just as it was expected to happen in 2020 before the tournament was delayed because of COVID-19. The tournament will take place from March 18 to March 30th. Because of the COVID-19 emergency, the tournament will not have fans in attendance just as the majority of football games around the world. Mexico is in Group A along with the United States, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic. The top two teams from the group will face the top 2 teams from Group B. The winners of the semifinal matches will get the 2 tickets to the 2021 Olympic games to be held in Japan.

The 2020 U23 Concacaf Championship was set to be held in March 2020 in the Guadalajara stadiums of Estadio Jalisco and Estadio Akron. Concacaf was the only confederation who had yet to decide their berths to the 2020 Olympic games. Unfortunately because of the COVID-19 emergency, the tournament had to be suspended. A year after it, rumors were strong that Concacaf was set to move the tournament to Orlando, to be played in the same bubble where MLS had their “MLS is Back” tournament. The news yesterday confirmed the tournament will remain in Guadalajara, but it will be held without fans. Group A is conformed by Mexico, The United States, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic while Group B has Canada, Honduras, El Salvador, and Haiti. While the tournament is set to take place, there are still strong rumors that the Olympic games might not take place especially with the global increase of COVID-19 cases worldwide and news that Japan had declared an emergency because of it. There is no word yet on a cancellation but so far the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announce plans are still under way for the Olympic Games to occur in Japan this summer.