{"id":34844,"date":"2026-05-19T12:32:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T10:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=34844"},"modified":"2026-05-19T12:32:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T10:32:00","slug":"southern-africa-launches-joint-bid-for-2028-afcon","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/southern-africa-launches-joint-bid-for-2028-afcon\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Africa launches joint bid for 2028 AFCON"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Newly elected Council of Southern African Football Associations (COSAFA) President Tariq Babitseng has confirmed that Southern African countries have submitted a joint bid to host the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in Harare after being elected unopposed, Babitseng said the regional bid includes the football associations of Botswana, South Africa (SA), Namibia and Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He said the move follows encouragement from Patrice Motsepe for African regions to actively pursue hosting major continental tournaments.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can confirm that the Southern African region, mainly Botswana, SA, Namibia and Zimbabwe, has submitted a joint bid to host the tournament in Southern Africa,\u201d Babitseng said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22311,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-34844","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Southern African countries have submitted a joint bid to host the AFCON in 2028","published_date":"2026-05-19 11:31:50","news_description":"Southern African countries have submitted a joint bid to host the AFCON in 2028","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34845,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34844\/revisions\/34845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=34844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}