COSAFA has introduced a couple of amendments to the regulations for the TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Champions League | COSAFA Qualifier in Durban from August 7-13 with player welfare front of mind.
This follows amendments made by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to their own regulations for the tournament, which serves as a qualifier for the
TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Champions League that is to be staged in Morocco later this year.
The two new amendments are as follows:
Squad sizes increased to 25 players
This is an optional amendment for clubs who will be allowed to up the size of their squads from the usual 20 to 25 players. However, the travel and accommodation costs of these five extra players must be borne by the club/association.
It will be interesting to see if any clubs adopt this as they will only play a maximum of five games in the competition, but if it is introduced at other events, such as the HOLLYWOODBETS COSAFA Women’s Championship, it may become vital.
Number of substitutes is increased to five per match
This one will be to the delight of most coaches as they can now make up to five substitutions in a game, though these can only be done at a maximum of three different intervals.
This gives coaches a greater chance to sway the game with tactics, while for players it potentially helps to limit the strain on them.
The other regulations for the competition remain as before, with the key ones being:
Deciding group standings
Group standings are decided in the first instance by the number of points a team has obtained in all games.
If two or more teams are level on points, then the first tiebreaker is number of points obtained in matches between them, ie the head-to-head rule.
After that it is down to the goal difference in the matches between the teams concerned and then greatest number of goals scored in all the matches between the teams.
If they still cannot be separated, then the following are applied in this order until there is a clear front-runner.
- The goals difference in all group matches
- A Fair Play system based on the number of yellow and red cards obtained by each team.
- A drawing of lots conducted by the Organising Committee
Extra-time/penalties
Only the final will have extra-time, if teams are level after 90 minutes in the third-place play-off, the contest will go straight to post-match penalties to determine a winner.
Disciplinary
If a player collects two yellow cards in the qualifying or finals tournament, they are automatically suspended for the next game.
However, any suspension picked up by a player in the COSAFA qualifier does not carry over to the finals tournament in Morocco.
