Namibia to host CAF African Schools Champs

The third staging of the CAF African Schools Football Championship | Cosafa Qualifier, Namibia 2024 will take place in Walvis Bay from October 11-13 as the nine Boys and Girls teams vie to represent the region on the continental stage. 

Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, hosts Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe will all be represented, with teams this year again made up of the best players from their national qualifiers, rather than single schools. 

It means the best of their young school’s talent in the country and this year’s competition will no doubt add to what has been an exceptionally high standard in the last two years. 

Cosafa currently has an African school’s champion after South Africa won the Girls competition at the most recent continental finals held in Zanzibar in May. South Africa were runners up in the Boys competition in 2023 via their entrant Clapham High School. 

The aim is now to qualify for the 2025 finals and the journey will start for the teams in Walvis Bay. 

The Boys’ and the Girls’ competitions will this year both be played on full size pitches with 11-a-side, a change from the previous two years when the Girls competition was 8-a-side on smaller playing areas. 

The draw for both competitions will be made in Walvis Bay shortly ahead of the event, with the teams likely to be split into three pools of three teams. 

It is a big step up from the inaugural event that was played in Malawi in October 2022. That competition had five Girls’ sides and was won by South African school Edendale Technical. 

There were six teams in the Boys’ competition and Clapham High School from South Africa were victorious there too. 

Clapham High School won the Boys’ competition and Edendale Technical the Girls title in the Cosafa qualifiers in 2022. Both are from South Africa. 

The format moved away from individual schools in 2023, but South Africa prevailed in the Boys’ competition with a dramatic penalty shoot-out victory over Malawi in the decider, while the Girls’ team beat Botswana to make it another double for the country. 

The CAF African Schools Football Championship has been spearheaded by CAF President Dr Patrice Motsepe, with the Motsepe Foundation providing a sizeable investment to the competition. 

In this year’s continental finals in Zanzibar, the winners of both the Boys’ and Girls’ competition each received USD 300 000 prize money to be utilised for development projects within schools. 

The runners-up received USD 200 000, while the bronze medalists took home USD 150 000. 

“Schools football is at the heart of the long-term development and growth of African football. One of the best investments that we can make to ensure that African football is amongst the best world, is to invest in schools’ football and football infrastructure for boys and girls at school, amateur and professional level,” Dr Motsepe said. – cosafa.com