3 July 2019 – The South African U-20 Women’s National Team (Basetsana)will participate in the first ever COSAFA Women’s U20 Championship, which will run concurrent with the Senior Women’s COSAFA Championship from 31 July – 11 August 2019 in Nelson Mandela Bay, Eastern Cape.

COSAFA have launched the first edition of the U20 regional tournament for Women and will also host a U17 tournament in September this year.

Speaking at the official draw for the bilateral championships, COSAFA Chairman of Competitions Mr Timothy Shongwe, expressed his pride in the innovation taken by COSAFA and added that although this would be the first time COSAFA host the U20 they have the experience to host this development tournament because they have done it for the region 5 games.

“We as COSAFA are trendsetters because we have the ability to execute our plans while developing our region.

We have hosted the U20 tournament before under the leadership of AUSC region 5 and we are very confident that the first edition of the COSAFA U20 Women’s Cup will run smoothly in conjunction with the senior championships”, said Shongwe.

Basetsana, who are current Zone 5 Champions recently participated in the U19 Chinese Women Tournament and will be eager to win another championship in the Southern African region when the take on Namibia, Zimbabwe and Malawi in group A.

Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania and Eswatini will make up group B of the 8 team competition from 1 August – 11 August 2019.