Introduction
The Castel Challenge Cup is a National Knockout Cup organised by the Football Association of Malawi (FAM). It is sponsored by Castel Malawi to the tune of K320 million. The 2023 Edition will be played for six months between July and December 2023.
Participation
The Castel Challenge Cup will be participated by 16 Super League and 102 Regional Leagues (36 from the South, 29 from the Centre and 37 from the North) and 816 District teams (344 from the South, 261 from the Centre and 209 from the North).
Format
The Cup will be played in the following phases:
District Preliminary Phase
Teams will compete in their respective districts to determine a district champion to qualify for the National Championship.
The district phase will be played in two phases:
- Zonal Round Robin Phase– In the first phase the teams will be dived into groups depending on number of teams registered and number of Zones in a particular district. In this phase teams will play on round robin.
- District Knockout Phase: After the round robin each district will come up with eight teams to play in the knockout phase from quarterfinals to determine the district champion.
The draws for the districts phase will take place in the respective districts on Tuesday July 18, 2023 in the Northern Region and Wednesday 19, 2023 in the Central and Southern Regions
Regional Leagues Preliminary Phase
The Regional League teams will play in a knockout regional championship in their respective regions to come up with 17 teams that will qualify for the national phase as follows( Numbers determined by the number of teams registered in each Region):
- South 6
- Centre 5
- North 6
Draw Procedure
Southern Region
The South will have three rounds of matches to determine the six teams that will qualify for the National Phase.
Round 1
From the 36 participating teams, the top four teams in each of the two Premier Division Streams and the top two teams in each of the Division One Streams as per the log tables of Monday July 17, 2023, will be seeded from round one (Total of 12). This means this round will comprise of the remaining 24 teams who will play in a knockout format to identify the 12 teams that will qualify for the second round.
Round 2
The 12 seeded teams will join the 12 winners from round 1 and the 24 teams will battle it out for the 12 slots in the third round.
Round 3
The 12 winners from Round 2 will battle it out for the 6 slots in the National phase.
The Southern Region draw will take place on Wednesday July 19 2023 at the Mpira Village in Blantyre.
Central Region
The Centre will have three rounds of matches to determine the five teams that will qualify for the National Phase.
Round 1
From the 29 participating teams, the top three teams in each of the three Premier Division Streams and top two teams based on the aggregate points accumulated in each of the three Division One Streams as per the log table of Monday July 17, 2023, will be seeded from round one ( Total of 11 teams). This means this round will comprise of the remaining 18 teams who will play in a knockout format to identify the Nine teams that will qualify for the second round.
Round 2
The 11 seeded teams will join Nine winners from round 1 and the 20 teams will battle it out for the 10 slots in the third round.
Round 3
The 10 winners from Round 2 will battle it out for the 5 slots in the National phase.
The Central Region draw will take place on Wednesday July 19, 2023 at the Civo Stadium in Lilongwe.
Northern Region
The North will have three rounds of matches to determine the Six teams that will qualify for the National Phase.
Round 1
From the 37 participating teams, the number one teams in each of the four Premier Division Streams and top teams in each of the three Division One Streams as per the log tables of Monday July 17, 2023, ( Seven in total) will be seeded from round one. This means this round will comprise of the remaining 30 teams who will play in a knockout format to identify the 15 teams that will qualify for the second round.
Round 2
The seven seeded teams will join the 15 winners from round 1 and the 22 teams will battle 11 slots in the third round.
Round 3
The 11 winners from Round 2 plus the overall best loser(12 teams) will fight for the six lost in the national phase.
The Northern Region draw will take place on Tuesday July 18, 2023 at the Luwinga Technical Centre in Mzuzu.
