diff --git a/roles/container-engine/cri-o/tasks/main.yaml b/roles/container-engine/cri-o/tasks/main.yaml
index 4139af9f4..63a5e4018 100644
--- a/roles/container-engine/cri-o/tasks/main.yaml
+++ b/roles/container-engine/cri-o/tasks/main.yaml
@@ -134,15 +134,13 @@
     owner: root
     mode: 0755
 
-- name: Remove metacopy mount options for older kernels
+# metacopy=on is available since 4.19 and was backported to RHEL 4.18 kernel
+- name: Set metacopy mount options correctly
   ini_file:
     dest: /etc/containers/storage.conf
     section: storage.options.overlay
     option: mountopt
-    value: "\"nodev\""
-  when:
-    - ansible_distribution == "CentOS"
-    - ansible_distribution_major_version == "7"
+    value: '{{ ''"nodev"'' if ansible_kernel is version_compare(("4.18" if ansible_os_family == "RedHat" else "4.19"), "<") else ''"nodev,metacopy=on"'' }}'
 
 - name: Create directory registries configs
   file: