2024 COSAFA Under-17 Championship

The 2024 COSAFA U-17 Youth Championship was the 12th edition of the COSAFA U-17 Youth Championship, the international youth football championship organised by COSAFA for the men's under-17 national teams of Southern Africa. Mozambique was initially designated to host the tournament but was stripped of the hosting rights due to ongoing protests following the 2024 Mozambican general election. It was then moved to Johannesburg, South Africa.
Zambia were the defending champions, having defeated South Africa 2–1 in the final of the previous edition, and they successfully retained their title by defeating Angola 2–1 in the final.

Participation

Participating teams

Twelve of the 14 COSAFA member nations have entered the competition, which serves as the regional qualifying tournament for the 2025 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations. Originally there were 2 qualification spots, but a third spot was added after the competition.
Note: All statistics exclude instances where the team was disqualified during the tournament.

Team	Appearance	Last appearance	Previous best performance
		2021
		2022
		2019
		2021
		2021
		2022
		2018
		2022
		2022
		2022
		2022
		2018

;Did not enter

Draw

The draw was held on 5 September 2024 at 11:00 CET at Maputo. The 12 teams were drawn into three groups of four teams, with hosts Mozambique seeded in Group A, the defending champions Zambia seeded in Group B and South Africa seeded in Group C. The remaining 9 teams were allocated to two pots based on the results of the previous tournament edition and were drawn to the remaining positions.

Squads

Each team was required to register a squad of 20 players for the tournament, with players born on or after 1 January 2008 eligible to participate.

Venues

On 26 November 2024, it was announced that the tournament had been moved from the original host city, Maputo, Mozambique, to Johannesburg, South Africa, with two venues selected to host all matches.