WAFCON

The Malawi Senior Women’s National football team and the Women’s Under 20 team will today know their opponents in the 2026 Women’s AFCON and FIFA U20- World Cup qualifiers respectively as CAF will be conducting the official draw of the competitions at its Headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.

The Scorchers make a return to the competition after missing the 2024 qualifiers. The qualifiers will be composed of the two home and away rounds. The first round will have 32 teams with the best six 6 ranked teams according to the FIFA ranking Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Ghana Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire exempted.

Malawi, who are among the 12 least ranked teams will be put in pot A alongside Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Tanzania and Uganda will be drawn against a team from pot B that has Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Equatorial Guinea, DR Congo and Congo in the first round.

The first round matches will be played in February next year while the last round will be played in October with the 11 winning teams qualifying to the final tournament to be held in March 2026. The Under 20 girls also make a return to the word qualifiers having last participated in the 2022 qualifiers when they lost to Zambia in the first round in 2021.

The qualifiers will be composed of four home and away rounds and Malawi, who are among the 12 non-exempted teams, will start from the first round . They are in pot two alongside Rwanda, Djibouti, South Sudan, Central Africa and Zimbabwe and will be drawn against a team from pot A that has Tunisia, Gambia, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Niger and Gabon.

The qualifiers will start in May 2025 and end in May 2026 with the top four teams qualifying for the World Cup to be held in September 2026.