THE Golden Jaguars, Guyana’s senior men’s national football team, will know their 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup preliminary round opponents on September 28, after the Victor Montagliani-led Confederation announced on Wednesday, their attempt to deliver a football-first philosophy, and to add more anticipation for fans across the region.

Golden Jaguars had finished second in Group C of League B of the CONCACAF Nations League and will be joined by The Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cuba, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Montserrat, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad & Tobago in the Gold Cup preliminary tournament.

The tournament will be played as a direct elimination format from July 2 to 6 in 2021, in a centralised location in the United States.

After a knockout format, the remaining three teams at the end of the Preliminary Round will qualify for the Gold Cup Group Stage.

By virtue of winning the CONCACAF Nations League, League A and League B, Canada, Costa Rica, Curacao, El Salvador, Grenada, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Suriname and the USA gained automatic qualification to next year’s Gold Cup.

Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup Champions, Qatar, will compete as a guest in next year’s Gold Cup as part of a major collaboration between CONCACAF and the host country of FIFA World Cup 2022.

CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation’s longstanding relationship, which was formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in May 2017, has resulted in various joint initiatives which have served to greatly develop football in both regions.

The MOU established a framework for strong collaboration between both Confederations and paved the way for a strategic partnership between CONCACAF, Qatar Football Association (QFA) and the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC), the organisation charged with delivering the infrastructure and operations for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.

The partnership includes Qatar National Team competing as a guest in the 2021 and 2023 Gold Cups.

The Qatar team are the current regional champions, having won the 2019 AFC Asian Cup. Additionally, the team participated in the 2019 Copa America in Brazil, providing strong opposition for South American national teams in the group stage.

Qatar will be the second AFC national team to compete as guest in the Gold Cup, following South Korea who played in the 2000 and 2002 editions.

Montagliani, who sits as FIFA’s vice-president, said “the CONCACAF Gold Cup continues to grow as a competition and we are hugely excited at the prospect of the 2021 edition, particularly as it falls in the Confederation’s 60th anniversary year.”

Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, the Asian Football Confederation president and Senior FIFA vice-president, on behalf of the AFC and the entire Asian football family, thanked Montagliani and his members for the invitation that they have extended for the AFC Asian Champions, Qatar, to play in what he has called a “a prestigious tournament as the Gold Cup”.

“When AFC and CONCACAF signed their Memorandum of Understanding in May 2017 we saw the obvious opportunities for both Confederations to help and improve each other both in terms of performances on the field – of teams, players and match officials as well as operations staff – and, just as importantly, the continued development of the game across our continents,” Al Khalifa said.