By Ntokozo Magongo
MBABANE – The Council of Southern Africa Football Association (COSAFA) has announced that all national football teams participating in their tournaments will be subject to the utilisation of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system.
Eswatini typically sends its national teams, including the Senior Men’s team (Sihlangu), Women’s Senior team (Sitsebe), Under-20 and Under-17 squads, to the annual COSAFA tournaments. In the past, VAR was only implemented from the semi-final stages of these competitions.
However, COSAFA Referees Manager and VAR Project Manager, Felix Tangawarima, has revealed that the usage of VAR will be extended to encompass all COSAFA tournaments in 2025. This announcement was made during the opening of a historic five-day VAR Referees Workshop held in Zambia.
According to cosafa.com, the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) Referees Workshop has officially commenced in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, bringing together 40 male and female referees for an intensive five-day training programme. This groundbreaking workshop is the first of its kind in East, Central, and Southern Africa, marking a significant stride in the region’s adoption of VAR technology.
Tangawarima stated, “For this year 2025, all our tournaments in COSAFA will be done with VAR. Zambia is the first country in the Central, Eastern and Southern zone to get the proper VAR project roll-out, and we are going to be with the referees (in Lusaka) for the next five days where we anticipate every referee to do a minimum of 25 hours training because for a referee to be certified, they have to be trained and go through a minimum of 25 hours.”
Furthermore, Tangawarima emphasised COSAFA’s unwavering commitment to VAR implementation, confirming that all COSAFA tournaments in 2025 will feature the technology.
Meanwhile, the Premier League of Eswatini (PLE) Chairman, Polycarp Dlamini, has also expressed interest in introducing VAR in the country, as stated before the start of the current season in August.
