Cosafa hunts for Women’s Champions League hosts

Council for Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) says it is searching for hosts for the inaugural Women’s Champions League preliminary round.

The competition will be held from June to August and,Cosafa vice-general secretary Suzgo Nyirenda, said though Zambia already confirmed to host the finals, three countries to host the preliminary round are yet to be identified.

He said: “The format has three preliminary rounds—one to be played by the three islands nations clubs from Seychelles, Madagascar and Comoros.

“Then four teams will form inland Group A and another 4 to form inland Group B. Some teams will be seeded as per their countries performance and will be in the final competition and will be joined by the four teams who will win in the preliminaries.”

Cosafa announced the introduction of a southern regional showpiece for women’s clubs last August, following in the footsteps of the Confederation of African Football plans to launch its Women’s Champions League this year.

Malawi’s DD Sunshine have already shown interest to participate in the competition.

Meanwhile, the flagship men’s Cosafa Cup is slated for the Fifa window that runs from May 31 to June 16 in Durban, South Africa while the men’s Under-20 Championship will take its usual slot in Eswatini in December.

The men’s Under-17 Championship and  women’s Under-20 Championship will  likely be played as part of the Region 5 Games in Lesotho in December.

The Women’s Championship is scheduled for September in Port Elizabeth, South Africa while the women’s Under-17 Championship is pencilled for August in Namibia.

Cosafa has also planned to host a beach soccer tournament in Durban and a first ever Futsal competition in Mozambique in September or October.