Vihiga Queens face Ethiopia's Commercial in Champions League qualifiers

Vihiga Queens were on Friday included in Group "B" of the Cecafa zonal qualifiers for the inaugural Confederation of Africa Football (Caf) Women’s Champions League.

The competition, bringing together eight women football clubs from the Cecafa region, was rescheduled for August 28 to September 9 in Nairobi. 

Initially, the three-time Kenya Women Premier League (KWPL) champions were pooled in Group "C" alongside Rwanda’s Scandinavian and Djibouti’s FAD Club. 

But Scandinavian pulled out of the competition due to Covid-19 restrictions, forcing Cecafa to conduct a mini-draw on Friday to find new opponents for Vihiga and FAD.

FAD have been pooled in Group "A" which also has Uganda’s Lady Dove FC, Burundi’s PVP FC and Tanzania’s Simba Queens.

In Group B, Vihiga under the tutelage of coach Alex Alumira, will face Commercial Bank of Ethiopia and South Sudan’s Yei Joint Stars.

The winner of the Cecafa Zonal qualifiers will clinch the sole ticket to the Caf Women’s Champions League reserved for the region.

The competition will take place in Egypt in November and December.  

Each of the CAF Zones including Cecafa, Council of South African Football Association (Cosafa), Union of Football Federations of Central Africa (Uniffac), West African Football Union (Wafu), Union of North African Football Association (Unaf) will organise qualifiers tournaments that will produce the six top teams.  
 
Afterwards, two other teams will be added with one from the host nation and the other from the combined CAF Zones tournaments best loser, arriving at a total of eight teams. The final eight teams will then be divided into two groups of four teams each for a face off for the Champions League title.

Egypt will field a team by virtue of being hosts. 

“We are very hopeful that this will be a very competitive tournament as we get the best team to represent the zone in the inaugural Total Energies Women’s Champions League final to take place in Egypt,” said Yusuf Mossi, the Cecafa Competitions Director.

Vihiga’s opening match in the qualifiers will be against Commercial Bank of Ethiopia on August 28. The group matches will end on September 3rd, before the semi-finals are played on September 6th and final three days later.

Before Vihiga broke camp in July following the postponement of the qualifiers, coach Alumira had made it clear of his side’s intention to triumph in the competition.

“For us (Vihiga), we always believe that when we suffer a setback, we must have a comeback, which must be greater than the setback. So having lost the league (to Thika Queens), I think it is a motivating factor because we have to win this one,” said Alumira then.

Draw

Group A

Lady Dove FC (Uganda), PVP FC (Burundi), Simba Queens (Tanzania) and FAD FC (Djibouti)

Group B

Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (Ethiopia), Yei Joint Stars (South Sudan) and Vihiga Queens (Kenya)