The CECAFA Ordinary Assembly has approved five tournaments to be staged by the Zone in the 2025 calendar.

During the non-elective Ordinary General Assembly held at the Imperial Plaza Hotel in Juba, South Sudan on Wednesday, the delegates approved the five competitions.

Auka John Gecheo who presented the competitions report on behalf of the chairman of the Committee Isayas Jira Bosho, pointed out that the tournaments have been planned after considering the different CAF and FIFA tournaments on the International calendar.

The Zonal body agreed to have the inaugural CECAFA Beach Soccer Competition in Kenya between May 31^st to June 7^th, while the CECAFA Senior Women’s Challenge and the CECAFA Senior Men’s Challenge Cup have also been lined up.

The Dar Port Kagame Cup 2025 will be expected to take place August 31^st to September 14^th, and the CAF Women’s Champions League, CECAFA qualifiers.

However, Member Associations have been asked to apply to host any of the tournaments that have been planned to run in the 2025 calendar.

Ethiopia’s U-20 side defeated Djibouti 2-0 in an international friendly match played at the Abebe Bikila Stadium on Monday.

The two teams used the match to prepare ahead of the TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) U-20 CECAFA qualifiers slated for October 6-20^th in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Nathael Solomon gave the hosts the lead after 43 minutes, and Degfie Alemu made it 2-0 three minutes into the second half.

The Djibouti team tried to push ahead to find some goal but failed to beat the Ethiopian defending line.

The Zonal qualifiers will kick start with a Group A match between Sudan and Djibouti at the Azam Complex, while hosts Tanzania will battle Kenya in a Group A match at the KMC Stadium the same day.

The 2022 runners-up South Sudan will open their Group B campaign against Burundi at the KMC Stadium, while reigning champions Uganda face Ethiopia in a match to be played at the Azam Complex all on October 7th. Tanzania will return to action on October 8th against Djibouti, the same day Sudan face Rwanda.

Nine teams will participate in the tournament with the best two teams qualifying to represent the Zone at the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations U-20 2025.

Group A: Tanzania, Sudan, Rwanda, Djibouti, Kenya

Group B: Uganda, South Sudan, Burundi, Ethiopia

A VAR workshop organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for members in the CECAFA Zone has today started in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Wallace Karia, the CECAFA President today officially opened the workshop taking place at the Peacock Hotel.

“CAF is carrying out VAR training for all Zones now and this a very good development. This training is very timely for our Zone and we thank CAF for making this happen,” added Karia.

CAF Director of Referee Department Desire Noumandiez Doue is facilitating the workshop which has attracted members from 11 countries including Libya and ends on October 5^th, 2024.

Ali Ahmed, the CECAFA Referees Manager called upon the participants to make good use of the workshop because CAF is determined to have as many referees as possible able to handle the VAR system.

The participants attending the workshop are coming from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Djibouti, South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya and hosts Tanzania.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced that the CECAFA Zone will have four teams participating in the TotalEnergies African Nations Championship (CHAN) 2025.

Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will host the competition slated for February 1-28^th, 2025.

“The CECAFA Zone, which includes the three host countries, will receive an additional slot due to their automatic qualification as hosts. As a result, the total number of teams qualifying for the final tournament will be increased to 19 teams,” the African Football body announced on Thursday.

CAF also announced that the road to CHAN 2025 will start with the first round of qualifiers running October 25-27, 20224 and the return leg to be played November 1-3, 2024.

The second round of the qualifiers will be played between December 20-22 for the first round, and the return legs December 25-27.

Besides the CECAFA Zone that will have four teams, all the other Zones COSAFA, WAFU A, WAFU B, UNAF and UNIFFAC have been allocated three teams in the competition.

CHAN is a competition that consists of players playing in their respective national Leagues competitions.

Uganda has qualified six times from the seven Editions of the CHAN competitions that have been held since 2009. Rwanda have qualified four times, while Sudan and Ethiopia have each qualified for CHAN three times.