FOOTBALL

CHAMPIONSHIP

Nairobi, Thursday September 8, 2016 KNA by Jeremiah Lechuta 

CECAFA WOMEN CHAMPIONSHIP 2016

Council for East and Central Africa football association (CECAFA) will be hosting its first ever women’s regional competition in Jinja, Uganda this Saturday with seven national teams participating.

African cup of nations (AFCON) 2016 finalists Kenya will face the host Uganda, Burundi and Zanzibar in group A. Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda will face off in group B.

Secretary General of CECAFA and the regional coordinator confederation of African football (CAF) Nicholas Musonye said that they have been under pressure to organize a women competition just as the men’s competition.

“This year competition will be a preparation for Kenyan national women’s team to prepare for the African cup of nations (AFCON) in 19^th November to 3^rd December in Yaounde, Cameroon,” said Musonye.

He said that the association was proud of Kenya for qualifying to the AFCON competition in Cameroon and that they will carry East Africa flag high.

He added that Kenya have been put into 4 teams to play so as to play a maximum of 6 games if they are to go all the way into the final so as to prepare for this year AFCON competition.

He also gave a 4 month programme the association has prepared for football in the region. The CECAFA Kagame cup which was supposed to be hosted in June will be hosted in December before the start of (CAF) competition in January because of the enlarge number of matches in the group stage (from 8 to 16 teams).

 He wanted the clubs to use Kagame cup to prepare for next year clubs championship league football in Africa. He added that once they find a sponsor they will roll out the programme for the Kagame cup

The challenge cup 2016 will be played in November with back to back with Kagame cup. Nicolas said that they are talking to sponsors to ensure that they give support to us to organize this competition.

Musonye said that he was in Uganda last week and they proposed that the under 17, 2017 to be played in Uganda in January. He added that the federations should prepare the under 17 and that they will soon be sending out regulation so as not to mix up the date and the age bracket and it should be done immediately after the women’s competition.

CECAFA is an association for football in East and Central Africa and was formed in 1973 with its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. It consists of 12 members namely (Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zanzibar).