The Confederation of African Football, CAF, has made a trailblazing decision that will see three female match officials officiate at a men’s top tournament in the continent for the first time in history.
Kenya’s Mary Njoroge, Lidwine Rakotozafinoro from Madagascar and Jonesia Kabakama of Tanzania, are among 29 officials named by CAF for this year’s AFCON U-17 event to be held at the National and Chamazi stadia in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.
The appointments were made in a CAF Referees Committee meeting held in Cairo with all 29 officials required to attend a two-week training course in Morocco from the 31st of this month.
The eight-team event will kick off on April 14th with the final being played on April 28. Uganda and hosts Tanzania are the only teams from East Africa to have qualified for the event.
It will be Uganda’s debut while it will be the second appearance for Tanzania.
Kenya and the winner of the 2017 edition Mali did not qualify. Other teams that made the cut are: Angola, Nigeria, Cameroon, Morocco, Senegal and Guinea.
The top four teams of the championship will qualify for the 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup finals in Brazil as the CAF representatives.