Žƒ†‹‡• •“—ƒ†• ‹…”‡ƒ•‡† –‘ ʹͷ

MBABANE – Teams will be allowed to bring a maximum of 25 players.

COSAFA is the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations. The latter has introduced a couple of amendments to the regulations for the Hollywoodbets COSAFA Women’s Champions League CAF Qualifiers in Durban, South Africa from August 7-13 with player welfare front of mind.

The squad composition is one of the amendments as they have increased the squad size to 25 instead of 20. However, this is not compulsory as it is an optional amendment for clubs who will be allowed to up the size of their squads from the usual 20 to 25 players.

However, the travel and accommodation costs of these five extra players must be borne by the club or association. This was contained in a statement released by COSAFA early this week.

Eswatini’s domestic league champions, who are booked to face Zambia’s Green Buffaloes on Sunday in the opening match of the CAF qualifiers, have already confirmed a 20-member squad list.

Vital

“It will be interesting to see if any clubs adopt this as they will only play a maximum of five games in the competition, but if it is introduced at other events, such as the Hollywoodbets COSAFA Women’s Championship, it may become vital,” reads the statement.

The second amendment was the number of substitutes per game as it has

also been increased to five. COSAFA said this would come as a delight for most coaches, but cautioned them that this can only be done at a maximum of three different intervals.

The increased number of substitutes would help to relieve the strain on players and give coaches a greater chance to sway the game with tactics. The other rules of the game remain unchanged.