The Council for East and Central African Football Association (CECAFA) has finally confirmed Malawi as the guest nation for the 2012 Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup to be held in Kampala.
This was confirmed by the body’s General Secretary Nicholas Musonye who insisted the council opted for Malawi ahead of Cameroun who had also shown interest in taking part because they are closer to the borders than the Indomitable Lions.
“We had an application from Cameroon but we opted to go with Malawi because when you have a party you cannot leave out your next door neighbour and go for one from far”, Musonye said.
Malawi brings the total of confirmed participants to 12 after usual suspects Djibouti pulled out something that makes it even more complicated to bring in Cameroun as Musonye explains.
“Malawi will be replacing Djibouti which pulled out. We could have considered Cameroon too but having 13 teams will simply complicate the draw so we have opted to leave it at 12”, he explained.
The confirmed 12 participants at this year’s edition of Africa’s oldest national competition are hosts Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sudan, Burundi, Somalia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Rwanda, Zanzibar, Malawi, Somalia and South Sudan.
The tournament, to be held in Uganda, will take place between November 24 and December 8 2012.
Uganda are defending champions and also won it the last time they hosted in 2009 after beating Kenya 1-0 in the finals.
