Africa-Press – Eswatini. Embarrassing as it is, the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) has paid a whopping E120 000 to the Mbombela Municipality for the use of Mbombela Stadium later this month.
The senior football national team, Sihlangu will host Somalia in the preliminary round of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers on March 27, a week after visiting the east African nation in the first leg.
Somalia find themselves in the same situation as Eswatini and have elected to play their home qualifying round first leg match on March 23 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Figures An EFA executive member confirmed the figures involved in Sihlangu home match following the ban of Mavuso Sports Centre by the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
While the Somhlolo National Stadium remains under refurbishment, the Mavuso Sports Centre was deemed unfit to host Category ‘A’ CAF games. Somali Football Federation (SFF) confirmed the development through CECAFA website ahead of the first leg match.
CECAFA website quoted SFF Secretary General Yusuf Ahmed saying they arrived at the decision to play in Dar es Salaam, as Somalia does not have a certified stadium for international matches. Somalia started training in Dar es Salaam last Tuesday.
Also, the country’s Total Energies CAF Confederation Cup Royal Leopard have been forced to use Mbombela for the group stage matches, paying a negotiated E75 000 fee per game.
Lowly ranked nations such as Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Eswatini, Lesotho and South Sudan are sweating it out in the preliminary stage of the AFCON qualifiers. Winners of the six two-legged ties will make it to the group stages, joining 42 others that were seeded.
The teams will then play in the groups on a round robin basis to determine those to make it to the AFCON finals in Cote d’Ivoire. Meanwhile, the newly appointed Somalia coach, Pieter De Jongh, has named only two home-based players in his 30-member squad for the AFCON preliminary round qualifiers while his counterpart Dominic Kunene named two foreign-based players in his 31-member tentative squad currently in camp at the EFA Technical Centre in Lobamba.
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