Kenya Confirmed As 2024 COSAFA Cup Guest Participants

The East African football nation, Kenya have been named as guest contestants at this year’s Cosafa Cup tournament, replacing Malawi in group B.

It will be Kenya’s second time participating in the Cosafa Cup tournament having first featured in the 2013 edition.

The draw for the 23rd edition of the tournament took place on Friday 14 June and Kenya will contest in group B alongside Comoros, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Malawi pulled out from this year’s tournament following the untimely passing of their vice-president Dr, Saulosi Chilima in a helicopter crash.

Kenya who were under FIFA suspension last year along with Zimbabwe are currently number 107 in the FIFA world rankings and have won the CECAFA (Confederation of East and Central Africa Football Association) Africa’s oldest regional cup, seven times.

In the recent world cup qualifiers, Kenya who are in group F, managed to draw Burundi 1-1 before holding Ivory coast 0-0 to acquire five points from four games.

The Harambee Stars will fancy their chances when they play Zimbabwe in group B following their recent good results against them in the final of the Four nations tournament held in Malawi in March 2024 where Kenya came from behind to beat the Warriors 3-1 and lift the  Four nations trophy.

However, from the six guest nations that have participated at the COSAFA Cup so far, no one has ever managed to win the trophy before.  Only Senegal have the best finish in their two appearances at the tournament after they were runners up in 2021 and finished third in 2022.

Tanzania lead the way with three appearances (1997, 2015 & 2018), Ghana (2015), DR Congo (2016) and Uganda (2019).

Zambia are the defending champions after a back-to-back win in 2022 and 2023 editions to become the country with more titles in the Cosafa Cup (seven). Overtaking Zimbabwe who have six titles. South Africa are third on five, Angola (three) and Namibia (one) the only other teams to claim regional glory.