Sikhumbuzo Moyo Senior Sports Reporter
THE Council of Southern African Football Associations (Cosafa) will not force its member states to have a synchronized leagues calendar so as not to disrupt their domestic programmes during the Champions League tournament which is set for its first kick-off in August next year.
Cosafa announced last week that it intends having its own version of the inter-club competition following a now perennial and seemingly patented failure by clubs and even national teams from the region to compete well with other clubs or nations from other regions.

Southern Region clubs have over the years fallen by the wayside in continental inter-club competitions with only South African giants Orlando Pirates having lifted the Caf Champions League in 1995 while Dynamos were losing finalists in 1998. The region also has no team that qualified for the World Cup that will be held in Brazil from June.

There were fears that the tentative dates would see those countries who follow the March to November soccer calendar like Zimbabwe and Zambia, having their leagues disrupted since the tournament will be held over almost one and a half weeks in South Africa.

“Cosafa will not dictate on the league format for our member states, its purely up to them,” said Cosafa’s co-ordinator Sue Destombes.
Meanwhile, the Premiership chief executive officer Kenny Ndebele said they would not have had problems with fixturing although they are yet to be formally briefed of the regional club tournament.

“It’s a little bit hard for us to make an official and binding statement on the issue because we have not been told formerly. However, I foresee no problem with fixturing, once its official we will come up with modalities of accommodating the said tournament,” said the Premiership head of secretariat.

He added:
“There is nothing really peculiar about when a season starts or ends, once proper details are given there is always room for modalities to be effected.”
Zimbabwe once adopted the August to May calendar during the Chris Sibanda and the late Morrison Sifelani leadership era but it was quickly aborted for a number of reasons some of which had to do with the drainage systems of most stadia in the country.

Destombes said finer details of the tournament would be released soon.

You Might Also Like

Comments