{"id":11649,"date":"2022-08-26T19:16:11","date_gmt":"2022-08-26T19:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/caf-finally-approves-somhlolo"},"modified":"2022-08-26T20:06:55","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T20:06:55","slug":"caf-finally-approves-somhlolo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/caf-finally-approves-somhlolo","title":{"rendered":"CAF FINALLY APPROVES SOMHLOLO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Eswatini. <\/strong><\/span><b>IT\u2019S good news for local football followers as the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) has successfully secured a temporary approval from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to host the TotalEnergies CAF Inter-Club matches at the Somhlolo National Stadium, starting next month.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>This means that the country\u2019s CAF envoys Royal Leopard and Mbabane Highlanders will now be able to host their forthcoming matches at the country\u2019s only MECCA.<\/p>\n<p>Leopard will be competing in the CAF Champions League against CFFA from Madagascar while Highlanders have a date with DStv Premiership outfit Royal AM.<\/p>\n<p>The first leg of the first preliminary round batch of matches is scheduled for the weekend of September 9-11 with the second leg games a week later, between September 16 and 18.<\/p>\n<p>Leopard will start away in Antananarivo, Madagascar while Highlanders will host the KwaZulu-Natal based outfit. The latest developments were confirmed by EFA\u2019s Marketing and Communications Officer Muzi Radebe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEFA would like to greatly appreciate CAF on the approval of their request and in the same vein express a note of gratitude to the ministry of sports, culture and youth affairs for the collaboration as some of the urgent matters to allow the matches were addressed.<\/p>\n<p>The hosting of the home matches will both be a benefit to the local participating clubs and fans, who have dearly missed watching their beloved clubs on home soil. This will also be an economic boosting opportunity for the participants and other stakeholders associated with the matches,\u201d Radebe stated.<\/p>\n<p>This comes at a time when there has been a national outcry about the unavailability of stadiums to host international matches, forcing the EFA to use Mbombela Stadium, Orlando Stadium and FNB Stadium in South Africa as alternative home venues.<\/p>\n<p>Leopard Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Frank Hurube said they were happy with the move.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are excited with the move as it will give us home ground advantage and further reduce costs for us. We would like to thank the EFA and parliamentarians for their intervention in the matter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Highlanders boss Chief Ally Kgomongwe said they were excited with the move.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are delighted with the news since we will now have home ground advantage and we will do our best to use it profitably in order to make our supporters happy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\">Eswatini<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Eswatini. IT\u2019S good news for local football followers as the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) has successfully secured a temporary approval from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to host the TotalEnergies CAF Inter-Club matches at the Somhlolo National Stadium, starting next month. This means that the country\u2019s CAF envoys Royal Leopard and Mbabane [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":11648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17,16],"tags":[234,248,249],"class_list":["post-11649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-eswatini","tag-eswatini"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>CAF FINALLY APPROVES SOMHLOLO - Eswatini<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"IT\u2019S good news for local football followers as the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) has successfully secured a tem ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/caf-finally-approves-somhlolo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CAF FINALLY APPROVES SOMHLOLO\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"IT\u2019S good news for local football followers as the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) has successfully secured a tem ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/caf-finally-approves-somhlolo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Eswatini\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-08-26T19:16:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-08-26T20:06:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/sites\/33\/2022\/08\/postQueueImg_35-630927c9eb8a9.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"409\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/caf-finally-approves-somhlolo#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/caf-finally-approves-somhlolo\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"CAF FINALLY APPROVES SOMHLOLO\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-08-26T19:16:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-08-26T20:06:55+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/caf-finally-approves-somhlolo\"},\"wordCount\":402,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/caf-finally-approves-somhlolo#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/sites\/33\/2022\/08\/postQueueImg_35-630927c9eb8a9.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Eswatini\",\"Eswatini\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/caf-finally-approves-somhlolo#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/caf-finally-approves-somhlolo\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/caf-finally-approves-somhlolo\",\"name\":\"CAF FINALLY APPROVES SOMHLOLO - 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