{"id":66706,"date":"2026-02-12T18:56:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cecafa-announces-seven-tournaments-for-2026-season"},"modified":"2026-02-12T19:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T19:48:15","slug":"cecafa-announces-seven-tournaments-for-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/cecafa-announces-seven-tournaments-for-2026-season","title":{"rendered":"CECAFA Announces Seven Tournaments for 2026 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"ap-article-header-tag\"> <strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong> <\/span>The Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA) will have seven tournaments in the 2026 season.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement was made during the CECAFA Elective General Assembly which took place on February 7th in Djibouti.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are glad that the competitions committee came up with a calendar and the Executive Committee passed it, and later it was presented to the Assembly,\u201d said the newly elected CECAFA President Paulos Weldehaimanot Andemariam.<\/p>\n<p>According to the calendar, the season will kick off with the CECAFA U-17 Girls Championship from May 30 to June 14th, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Yusuf Mossi, the CECAFA Competitions Manager also explained that after failing to host the inaugural CECAFA Beach Soccer Championship last year, the regional body is planning to have the tournament take place July 1-5th this year. \u201cIt is long overdue for the Zone to have a Beach Soccer tournament because other Zones like the COSAFA already have one,\u201d added Mossi.<\/p>\n<p>The Zone will also organize the club competition, the CECAFA Kagame Cup from July 18 to August 9th. The competition is normally used to prepare teams in the pre-season ahead of the start of the Confederation of Africa Football Associations (CAF) competitions.<\/p>\n<p>The Zone will also organize the CAF Women\u2019s Champions League for CECAFA qualifiers, African Schools Football Championship CECAFA qualifiers, CAF U-17 African Cup of Nations CECAFA qualifiers and CAF U-20 Africa Cup of Nations CECAFA qualifiers.<\/p>\n<p><b>CECAFA 2026 competitions<\/b><br \/>\n<b># CECAFA U-17 Girls Championship (May 14-June 14th)<\/b><br \/>\n<b># CECAFA Beach Soccer Championship (July 1-5)<\/b><br \/>\n<b># CECAFA Kagame Cup (July 18 \u2013 August 9th)<\/b><br \/>\n<b># CAF Women\u2019s Champions League \u2013 CECAFA Qualifiers<\/b><br \/>\n<b>(August 22 \u2013 September 6th)<\/b><br \/>\n<b># CAF African Schools Football Championship CECAFA Qualifiers<\/b><br \/>\n<b>(August 12-15th)<\/b><br \/>\n<b># U-17 AFCON \u2013 CECAFA Qualifiers (October 14-19th)<\/b><br \/>\n<b># U-20 AFCON \u2013 CECAFA Qualifiers<\/b><br \/>\n<b>(September 19 \u2013 October 10th)<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-article-footer-note\">Find more news and analyses on <span class=\"ap-highlight-country\">Lesotho<\/span> on the <span class=\"ap-highlight-brand\">Africa Press<\/span> website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. The Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA) will have seven tournaments in the 2026 season. The announcement was made during the CECAFA Elective General Assembly which took place on February 7th in Djibouti. \u201cWe are glad that the competitions committee came up with a calendar and the Executive Committee [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":66705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[245],"class_list":["post-66706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-lesotho"],"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>CECAFA Announces Seven Tournaments for 2026 Season - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"-article-header-tag&quot;&gt; Africa-Press - Lesotho. 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