The draw for the 2017 COSAFA Women’s Championship will take place on Wednesday, August 23 when the teams learn their first round fate at the regional showpiece competition to be staged in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe from September 13-24.

The draw will be held at the Johannesburg studios of the tournament’s official broadcaster, Kwese Sports, and will be live from 14h00 SAST (12h00 GMT).

Fans across South Africa and beyond can follow the broadcast on the Kwese Sports App on smart devices (available for download on Android and IOS).

There will be 12 teams that go into the pots, 11 from the COSAFA region and East African guest nation Kenya. Previous competitions have seen a maximum of eight sides.

It is therefore the biggest ever field for the regional showpiece competition, and a sign of the tremendous growth in interest of women’s football in Southern Africa.

Aside from hosts Zimbabwe, the other competing COSAFA nations are Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Zambia.

Zimbabwe will be defending the title they won on home soil the last time the competition was staged six years ago, with South Africa claiming the trophy in the three competitions played before that.