The 2025 COSAFA Cup, officially known as the 2025 Hollywoodbets COSAFA Cup (for sponsorship purposes), was the 24th edition of the COSAFA Cup, the annual international football championship organised by COSAFA for the senior men's national teams of their member associations. South Africa hosted the tournament for the eighth consecutive year, from 4 to 15 June 2025. The tournament involved 14 teams.
In May 2025, it was announced that 13 of the 14 COSAFA member nations would take part in the tournament,[2] with Morocco from UNAF completing the lineup in place of Seychelles, who did not return for this edition.[3] On 29 May, Morocco withdrew from the competition and were replaced by Tanzania from CECAFA.[4][5] Of the 14 participating nations, Madagascar and Mauritius returned to the competition after missing the previous two and one editions, respectively.[6]
Each team may name a preliminary squad of up to 30 players, which must be reduced to a final list of 23 for the tournament.[8]
Venues
The following two stadiums in the province of Free State were selected to host matches during the tournament, with one of them having previously served as a venue for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.[9]
The final tournament draw took place on 21 May 2025, 11:00 SAST (UTC+2).[10] Four teams; the hosts, the defending champions, and the two highest-ranked sides according to the April 2025 FIFA Rankings, were automatically seeded in position 1 of Groups A to D. The remaining ten teams were divided into two pots based on their FIFA Rankings, with four teams placed in Pot 1 and six in Pot 2.
If more than two teams were tied, the following criteria were applied instead:
Points in matches between the tied teams;
Goal difference in matches between the tied teams;
Goals scored in matches between the tied teams;
If after applying all criteria above, two teams were still tied, the above criteria were again applied to matches played between the two teams in question. If this did not resolve the tie, the next three criteria were applied;
A player was automatically suspended for the next match for the following offences:
Receiving a red card (red card suspensions could be extended for serious offences)
Receiving two yellow cards in two different matches; yellow cards expired after the completion of the group stage unless the second yellow was received in the final group match (yellow card suspensions were not carried forward to any other future international matches)
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