Zimbabwe to host CAF African Schools Football Championship
The second staging of the CAF African Schools Football Championship | COSAFA Qualifier, Zimbabwe 2023 will take place in Harare from December 14-16, with a slight tweak to the tournament this year as teams vie to represent the region on the continental stage.
Eleven COSAFA members will send boys and girls sides to compete in the Under-15 competition, where they will hope to earn a place at the continental finals in 2024.
Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Zambia, and hosts Zimbabwe will all be represented, and teams this year can be made up of the best players from the national qualifiers, rather than single schools. If federations choose to go that route, it means they can be represented by the best of their young school’s talent in the country, and will no doubt add to what was an exceptionally high standard in the inaugural year.
The boys’ competition will be played on full-sized pitches with 11-a-side, while the girls’ tournament is played on half-sized pitches and is 8-a-side. In both competitions it will be 20 minutes per half, with a 10-minute halftime break. The draw for both competitions will be made in Harare ahead of the event. It is a big step up from the inaugural event that was played in Malawi in October 2022.
That competition had five girls’ sides and was won by South African school Edendale Technical. There were six teams in the boys’ competition and Clapham High School from South Africa were victorious there too. COSAFA President Artur de Almeida e Silva says the competition will be a major steppingstone for the boys and girls who dream of playing football professionally.
“This is much more than a school’s competition, it is a first introduction
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