Cosafa revises tournament format
The Council of Southern African Football Associations (Cosafa) Cup organisers have been forced to change the format of the competition, following the late withdrawal of two teams from Group B.
In a statement on their website Monday, Cosafa said the Comoro Islands and Madagascar withdrew from the tournament, leaving Group B with only Zambia and Malawi.
This has now forced the organisers to revise the format, which initially had 12 teams drawn into three groups of four each.
The withdrawal will now see the tournament having two groups of five teams each, with the top two nations in each group advancing to the semifinals.
On Monday, Cosafa conducted a draw to place Zambia and Malawi in groups A and B, respectively.
This means Namibia are now in Group B with their original opponents from the initial draw, guests Senegal, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
They will now be joined by Malawi, while defending champions Zambia were placed in Group A with hosts
South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini.
The opening matches in the old Group C (now Group B) will now be played today, instead of tomorrow as originally planned.
Mozambique will tackle Zimbabwe at the Wolfson Stadium at 12h00, and Senegal will meet Namibia at the same venue at 15h00.
Namibia will then play Zimbabwe on Saturday, before facing Malawi on Tuesday, and Mozambique the following day.
The competition will continue in a round-robin format until each team has played four matches, as compared to three from the draw before the withdrawal by the two teams.
Meanwhile, the Cosafa organising committee says teams may use five substitutes in matches, though they must be brought on at only three separate points during the game.
This is in line with the International Federation of Association Football and Confederation of African Football statutes that have been extended for use up until the end of 2022.