Cosafa prize money pegged at K40m
The Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) has cleared the cloud of uncertainty surrounding the prize money for the revived Cosafa Cup.
There had been doubts over the issue of prize money, a development that nearly forced South Africa’s Bafana Bafana’s participation.
However, a statement from Cosafa signed by chief operations officer Sue Destombes revealed that there is over R1 million [about K40 million] sponsorship package for the tournament that will be staged in Zambia.
The regional championship makes a return after a three-year absence and will be played from July 6-20 in three venues across Zambia.
The winning country will go home with R500 000 [about K19 million], while the runners-up in the July 20 final will receive R250 000 [about K9.5 million]. The team that collects the bronze medal will earn R150 000 [ about K5.8 million].
“There will also be a Plate competition this year for the losing quarter-finalists, with the winner of that taking home R100 000 [about K3.8 million],” read part of the statement.
Twelve of the 14 Cosafa member countries will be present, along with guest nations Kenya and Equatorial Guinea.
Cosafa is hoping to promote exciting, attacking football for fans, and will give two R30 000 prizes to the nations who score the most goals in the pool stages, ensuring there will be no ‘dead rubbers’ in the competition.
There will also be prizes for Player of the Tournament, Top Goalscorer and Top Goalkeeper, with each of these amounting to R10 000.
The draw for the Cosafa Cup Zambia 2013 was held earlier this month in Lusaka. The eight lower seeded sides, according to the April Fifa World Rankings, were pooled into two groups of four sides each.
The remaining six top seeds, including Malawi, enter the competition in the quarter-final stages, with hosts Zambia already paired against Mozambique in their Last 8 clash.
Group A contains Central African guests Equatorial Guinea, Namibia, Mauritius and Seychelles and is sure to be hotly contested.
Group B features another guest nation, this time from East Africa in Kenya, as well as Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.
The teams will play each other in a round-robin format, with the top sides in each pool advancing to the quarter-finals.
The Cosafa Cup was first played in 1997 as a regional championship for southern African sides. Zimbabwe head the honours’ list with four titles, while Zambia, South Africa and Angola have three each. They are the only countries to have won the event.
The Flames twice reached the finals in 2002 and the following year.
