Zambia Gets Cosafa Cup Group Stage Bye

Zambia has been handed a preliminary group stage bye going into Fridays 2013 Cosafa Castle Cup draw in Lusaka.

Zambia will instead enter the competition at the quarterfinal stage with six other top ranked countries.

South Africa, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique and defender champions Zimbabwe will all enter the competition at the last eight stage on July 13.

However eight other countries will battle in two groups for the two quarterfinals spots up for grabs from July 6 to 11 in preliminary group games to be played at Nkoloma Stadium in Lusaka and Godfrey ‘Ucar’ Chitalu Stadium in Kabwe.

Botswana, Mauritius, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho, Seychelles including guest teams Tanzania and Kenya will go into the group draws to be held at Southern sun Ridgeway starting at 18:00 on May 3.

Kenya and Tanzania have been seeded going into the draws.

Meanwhile the quarterfinal games too will be played in Lusaka and Kabwe while the losers will drop to the plate competition to be played at Arthur Davies Stadium in Kitwe on July 16 and 18.

The semifinals and final will be played at Levy Mwanawasa Stadium on July 17 and July 20 respectively.

Levy will also host the third and fourth playoff on July 20.