Kenya to host CAF Women’s Champions League CECAFA qualifiers 2025

The CAF Women’s Champions League Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations (Cecafa) qualifiers 2025 will be held in Nairobi next month.

The tournament, which will feature eight teams, will take place from September 4th to 16th.

Football Kenya Federation (FKF) applied to host the regional tournament that will bring together eight teams. The tournament was initially set to be held in Dar es Salaam. 

“We are happy that the tournament will be returning to Kenya after the inaugural one was hosted there in 2021,” said the Cecafa Competitions Director, Yusuf Mossi.

Cecafa resolved to stage the tournament before September 18, to allow players to be available to appear for their national teams in the preliminary round of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup qualifiers.

The Member Associations of Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti will not send teams to participate in the tournament.

Defending champions Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) FC and Yei Joint Stars are the only teams to appear in all the last four editions of the qualifiers.

The winners of the Zonal qualifiers will represent Cecafa at the CAF Women’s Champions League 2025.

The eight teams that will take part in the tournament include: Top Girls Academy FC (Burundi), Kenya Police Bullets (Kenya), and Yei Joint Stars FC (South Sudan)

Others are JKT Queens (Tanzania), Commercial Bank of Ethiopia FC (Ethiopia), Kampala Queens (Uganda), Rayon Sports Women's FC (Rwanda), and JKU Princesses FC (Zanzibar).

Separately, 12 teams, including Kenyan champions Kenya Police, will take part in the regional Kagame Cup 2025, Cecafa has announced.

“We are happy to announce that the tournament will take place from September 2nd to 15^th in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,” said Auka Gecheo, the Cecafa Executive Director.

He made it clear on Tuesday that twelve teams will take part in the competition, with the hosts providing two teams and another guest side from another Zone.

“We expect to have a more competitive tournament as most of the teams will use it to prepare ahead of the 2025/2026 CAF competitions,” added Gecheo.

Zambia Premier League side Red Arrows last year lifted the Cecafa Kagame Cup after defeating Rwanda’s APR FC in the final played at the KMC Stadium.

The teams expected to participate include; Vipers SC (Uganda), El Merriekh SC Bentiu (South Sudan), Mlandege SC (Zanzibar), Al Hilal (Sudan), Kenya Police FC (Kenya), Ethiopia Insurance (Ethiopia), MCC FC (Somalia), APR FC (Rwanda), Aigle Noir FC (Burundi), Young Africans SC, Simba SC (Tanzania), ASAS Djibouti Telecom (Djibouti)