For the first time, seven teams from the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) have qualified for the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals.
The seven that have booked their tickets to the 2025 edition in Morocco are Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The Flames, who finished last in Group L after tying on four points with third-placed Burundi, are among the other seven teams that failed to make the grade.
The others are E-swatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and Namibia.
All Malawi’s neighbouring countries, Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania, and, by extension, Zimbabwe and South Africa, have punched their tickets to the continental showpiece.
Cosafa technical committee chairperson Walter Nyamilandu said in an interview yesterday that the bloc is reaping the rewards from an initiative launched to elevate the standards of football under the theme ‘Bridging the gap of technical excellence.’
Said the Cosafa executive committee member: “It is pleasing that more Cosafa teams have qualified. This aligns with the vision of Cosafa to increase the number of teams qualifying for Afcon and World Cup.
“We are reversing the trend of being whipping boys and punching bags for teams from West and North Africa.”
Nyamilandu, who is immediate-past Football Association of Malawi president and serving Confederation of African Football executive committee member, further said: “The positive trajectory “is inspiring and promising that qualifying for the World Cup and winning Afcon, are not far-fetched drams for Cosafa.”
At the Ivory Coast 2023 edition, five Cosafa teams namely, South Africa, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique and Namibia qualified while at the delayed 2021 competition hosted by Cameroon in 2022, had Malawi, Comoros and Zimbabwe.
South Africa and Zambia are the only Cosafa countries to have ever won Afcon.
