Qualification round 

March 7Gitikinyoni vs Intare FC 1pmHope FC vs Esperance 3:30

March 8Musanze vs SEC Academy 1pmUR FC vs Pepiniere Akagera vs Etoile de l’est Aspor vs Vision FCSorwathe vs Vision JN 3:30pmHeroes vs United StarsNyagatare vs Kirehe Rwamagana City vs Gasabo United Miroplast vs Rugende

Kirehe FC head coach Hamis ‘Kishi’ Sogonya is seeking to impress in the 2017 edition of the Peace Cup competition when the national league club start their campaign against second division side Nyagatare FC on March 8.

Twenty -two (22) clubs have been drawn to face each other in the preliminary round where 16 will be determined to complete the 32-team roaster for the 1/16th round, which is planned to start on April 19.

Kishi, who won the Peace Cup title with Les Citadins (AS Kigali) in 2001, hopes to guide the Eastern Province-based outfit as far as possible.

"We want to do better in this competition by winning the opening game against Nyagatare so that we can be in the draw for the next round. We will go game by game then see where we will finish, it’s a knockout competition in which anyone can beat anyone,” said Kishi.

The knock-out qualification round, which will be played on March 7-8, will produce 11 winners and five best losers to make 16 teams that will then join the already best ranked 16 teams from last year’s competition to make it a total of 32.

Rayon Sports won last year’s title after they edged archrivals APR FC 1-0 in the title match, which gave them the right to represent Rwanda at this year’s CAF Confederation Cup.

Djuma Masudi’s team is already in the 1/16th round of Africa’s second biggest club competition, after eliminating South Sudan’s Al Wau Salaam 6-0 on aggregate.

They will face Onze Créateurs of Mali in the first-round, first leg on March 11 at Stade Modibo Keita in Bamako before hosting the second leg on March 18 in Kigali at Amahoro national stadium.

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