13 nations to take part in Cosafa Cup

Lovemore Dube Senior Sports Editor
THIRTEEN countries will take part in the 2014 Cosafa Senior Challenge Cup to be held in Botswana in September.
At the close of confirmation at the weekend, 13 of the 14 members had confirmed their participation making the event one of the best subscribed.
Comoros Islands will be the only country not participating in this year’s competition. They have expressed challenges with travelling.
“Only Comoros Islands have declined an invitation, citing travel difficulties, offering a near full-house of Cosafa nations for the tournament that will run from September 13-28.

“That is one better than the 2013 tournament in Zambia, where both Comoros and Madagascar were missing. The Malagasy have confirmed their participation for this year,” said tournament technical co-ordinator Sue Destombes.
There could be a guest nation drawn from outside the region according to Destombes.

“It is also highly likely that there will also be at least one guest nation from outside the region taking part to add a pan-African flavour to the tournament with Cosafa already in negotiations on this score,” said the Cosafa spokesperson.

The format of the competition has not changed with one similar to last year’s competition in Zambia to be used. There will be two first round groups with the winners and runners-up proceeding to the knockout rounds.

Teams that bow out in the quarter-final stage will get to compete in the Plate. This is being done to ensure teams play a good number of matches which is in line with efforts to develop and expose talent within the region, the weakest on the continent.

Most Cosafa countries are often booted out in preliminary stages of continental tournaments.
Last year’s Cosafa tournament was staged in Zambia with the hosts beating Zimbabwe in the final to make it four wins in the event.
Zimbabwe have won the tournament four times while both South Africa and Angola have lifted the title three times.