Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
HOSTS Zimbabwe will head into the latest edition of the COSAFA Women’s Championship with a proud record of being the team that has scored the biggest winning margin in the history of the competition.

The COSAFA Women’s Championship will run from September 13 to 24 in Bulawayo with 12 countries taking part.

The matches will be played at Barbourfields and Luveve. And the Mighty Warriors remain the team with the biggest winning margin with their 15-0 annihilation of Lesotho in their Group A clash in 2002, being a record for the tournament.

Zimbabwe will be hosting the tournament for the third time in their history, having also hosted the first edition in 2002 and in 2011 when they beat South Africa at Rufaro to be crowned champions.

That was also the last time the tournament was staged. South Africa had won it on three previous occasions — the inaugural edition in 2002, 2006 and 2008.

And for Zimbabwe it was a sweet victory as they had waited long to win the title after losing the 2002 final, 1-2 to South Africa. This year’s edition will be the biggest with 11 COSAFA nations —Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and hosts Zimbabwe confirming their participation.

They will be joined by East African guest nation Kenya.

COSAFA secretary-general Sue Destombes, her deputy Suzgo Nyirenda and the head of the COSAFA referees committee Felix Tangawarima were in Bulawayo last week to inspect the venues to be used for the tournament.

The trio also checked on ZIFA’s state of preparedness to host the competition that returns to the country six years after Zimbabwe last played hosts.

Local Organising Committee chairperson Omega Sibanda said there were some concerns raised over the stadiums and work has already started at Luveve to ensure all is in place by the time the tournament kicks off.

“We have toured the stadiums around the city which is Luveve and White City Stadium. And Luveve was condemned. “But the good news is that City Council automatically acted and Luveve is closed up to the beginning of COSAFA on the 13th of September. They are doing some renovations. The flood lights at Luveve, because some of the games will be played at night are not connected.

“At Barbourfields the standby generator is not connected, the lights by the stadium B Arena they are not working, they were never connected. So a lot of things were not done properly.

“White City stadium was condemned outright including the B Arena . . . it must be redone so no soccer can be played at White City.

“But otherwise as of accommodation all went very well, it went well. The COSAFA team was very happy and I am saying we are looking forward to a big and massive tournament. Remember CAF AFCON has got a representation of eight teams but COSAFA has got 12 countries which makes it unique and powerful,” Sibanda said.

The tournament comes at the right time as most of the participating countries will be using this tournament to build towards the qualifiers for the Africa Women Cup of Nations to be staged in Ghana late next year.

The qualifiers start in February next year, with the continental tournament also serving as entry into the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France.

A number of COSAFA countries have competed at the African Women’s Championship (now Africa Women Cup of Nations) in the past including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Zambia, Namibia and Mozambique.

Going into next month’s tournament the limelight also falls on Zimbabwe and South Africa who were the two African countries that participated at the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil as countries from the region continue to make strides in the development of women football.

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