Auka: Cecafa Women's Championship has been a success

The Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA) General Secretary, Auka Gecheo has termed the ongoing women's tournament in Uganda a huge success.

The women's tournament comes to an end on Saturday afternoon with a final between AWCON-bound teams, Uganda and Burundi at the FUFA Technical Centre in Njeru. The match will be preceded by a third-position playoff tie between Tanzania and Ethiopia, the two semifinal losers at the same venue.

The tournament returned after a two-year hiatus caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and featured eight teams: Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Rwanda, Zanzibar, and Djibouti. Defending champions, Kenya were locked out of the competition as they are currently serving a FIFA suspension due to government interference into football matters.

For the CECAFA boss, Gecheo who replaced long-serving Nicholas Musonye in 2020, the tournament has been a success.

"This tournament has been a huge success," he told CECAFA media.

"Even the teams that lost gave their best. We have witnessed really good games and the four teams that reached the semis deserved to be there because they played very good football and exhibited a high level of tactical capacity".

With the two finalists set to represent the region at AWCON next month, Auka says the tournament in Uganda has given the two teams some good preparations ahead of the biannual competition.

"We provided a good environment to compete and Uganda and Burundi will have five games under their belt that puts them in good shape ahead of the tournament in Morocco," he added.

Burundi and Uganda already met in the group stage where the Crested Cranes white-washed the Swallows 4-0 and they will be keen on bagging the title in front of their home crowd.

2022 CECAFA Women: Uganda, Burundi on the verge of history