Cosafa has announced that the next edition of the Cosafa Cup is slated for May next year.
South Africa last week offered to host the Senior Cosafa Cup, which was not held this year.
According to the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa), the tournament is planned for the end of the league season in May to allow all competing countries to field full strength squads.
South Africa are still to decide the venues for the tournament, but confirmed the hosting of the 14-country event after the completion of the Cosafa annual general meeting (AGM) in Johannesburg on Saturday.
“We already have the necessary resources to make sure that the tournament takes place,” Cosafa president Suketu Patel told a press conference after the meeting.
“We had a traumatic 2014 trying to get the Cosafa Cup up and running after such a successful tournament in Zambia in 2013. We did not anticipate the difficulties. But it is not only with great relief that we can look forward to a 2015 tournament but also with great assurance,” Patel said.
“We are proud that Safa [South Africa Football Association] will host the next Cosafa Cup in South Africa,” added Danny Jordaan, the Safa president.
“We will look to make it a successful tournament both on and off the pitch and re-establish our contribution to make Cosafa the strongest region in African football,” he added.
Cosafa also made a commitment to prepare a four-year programme from 2016 onwards that will see an annual Cosafa Cup plus Under-20 and Under-17 tournaments, and a women’s championship.
Patel said next year’s Under-20 tournament would be played in Zambia in late November/early December. Dates and venues are being worked on with Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) and will be announced in due course.
There will also be the inaugural beach soccer tournament for Cosafa countries to be hosted in the Seychelles from April 9-11 2015 with eight nations taking part. The participants have still to be confirmed.
The event will be the precursor to the CAF Beach Soccer Tournament being organised and hosted by Seychelles a week later.
