Cosafa inspects Malawi U-17 hosting facilities, teams trickle in
Council for Southern Africa Football Association (Cosafa) has inspected facilities for the 2019 COSAFA Under-17 Youth Championship as participating teams and officials have started arriving in the country ahead of the tournament’s kickoff this Friday in Blantyre.
Comoros is the first team to arrive in the country through Chileka International airport on Tuesday afternoon while Lesotho and Angola will arrive through Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe on Wednesday afternoon.
Mozambique are travelling by road from Tete and will arrive on Wednesday through Mwanza Boarder.
South Africa will come in two groups through Chileka with the first one arriving on Wednesday and the other on Thursday. Zambia will also arrive on Wednesday while Eswatini will jet in on Thursday.
The referees for the tournament arrived on Saturday and have, since Sunday, been attending a pre-tournament referees’ course which ends on Thursday.
COSAFA officials also started arriving on Saturday and the latest to arrive on Monday was Deputy General Secretary and Competition Manager Suzgo Nyirenda.
Nyirenda led the COSAFA team in inspecting all facilities on Tuesday and Wednesday at Mpira Stadium and Kamuzu Stadium.
FAM Competitions and Communications Director Gomezgani Zakazaka said all is set for the country to host the tournament.
“On behalf of the LOC Chairman I would like say that we are excited to host the tournament and everything is in place and we can’t wait for the games to start.
“After the inspections we will meet with COSAFA to finalise the whole programme of the event,” said Zakazaka.
Malawi are in Group A alongside South Africa, Zambia and Eswatini while Group B has Lesotho, Comoros Angola and Mozambique.
Lesotho will face Comoros in the tournament’s opening fixture at the Mpira Stadium in Chiwembe on Friday morning before Angola take on Mozambique later in the afternooo.
The Official opening ceremony is on Saturday at the same venue as Eswatini play Zambia in a Group B opener at 11 am before Malawi face South Africa at 2 pm.
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