By Mark Baber
February 11 – The Cosafa Cup, suspended since 2010, will return this year with the re-launched tournament being held in Zambia in July, and Castle remaining on board as the main sponsor.
The announcement was made at the opening of the new offices of the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa). Cosafa House, in Johannesburg.
The Cosafa Senior Challenge, an annual tournament which has seen participation by Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mozambique, Namibia, Réunion, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe is being revived, with South African Breweries (SAB), under the Castle brand, back as sponsor.
Castle was the original sponsor of the competition in 1997 on a 10-year deal before pulling out in 2006, leaving the tournament without a sponsor from 2007-2009. The 2010 tournament, due to be held in Angola, was cancelled.
Speaking at the opening of the new Cosafa house in Johannesburg, Suketu Patel, the president of Cosafa, said: “We agreed on a deal today with Castle regarding the sponsorship of the tournament which will be played in July in Zambia.
“The agreement that we have is that we will have the tournament this year with the option of extending if we have a successful competition this
Patel, a Seychelles businessman, who is also a CAF vice-president, said although Cosafa would retain their headquarters in Botswana, Cosafa House in Johannesburg would become the regional body’s administrative and commercial wing.
“Having our own offices is an important step forward for Cosafa and is in line with the exciting plans that we have for the future. It is important that we are able to function in a professional environment that helps the organisation in our day-to-day operations,” said Patel.
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