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Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
COSAFA has released the format and tournament regulations for the Cosafa Women’s Championship which gets under way in Nelson Mandela Bay on Tuesday.

This year’s competition will take on additional significance as it comes just a month before the start of qualifiers for the 2022 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations scheduled for next month, providing competing sides a chance to fine-tune their plans.

Three groups comprising four teams each will clash in a round-robin format, earning three points for a win and one for a draw.

Only the top team in each pool and the best-placed runner-up will advance to the semi-finals. The semi-final line-up is provisionally the winner of Group A to play the best-placed runner-up, and the winners of Groups B and C to clash.

However, if the best runner-up is also from Group A, organisers can change the fixture to ensure the two teams don’t meet twice in quick succession.

There will also be a third-place play-off for the losing semi-finalists. Each competing team is guaranteed a minimum of three games, going up to a maximum of five if they reach the semi-finals. Only the final will have extra-time; if teams are level after 90 minutes in the semi-finals and third-place play-off, the contest will go straight to penalties to determine a winner.

South Africa have won the last four championships and seven out of eight in all, with only Zimbabwe breaking their run on home soil in 2011.

Zimbabwe returned home without a win in last year’s tournament after losing to Tanzania and Botswana in the group stage to finish bottom of the pool with no points.

Cosafa Women’s Championship draw

Group A: South Africa, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique

Group B: Botswana, Tanzania, South Sudan, Zimbabwe

Group C: Zambia, Namibia, Eswatini, Uganda