CECAFA
Cecafa Kagame Cup kicks off in Dar with news over Kenya’s Gor Mahia stealing the limelight
THE Cecafa Kagame Cup Club Championship opens in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Friday and as the football passionate country looked forward to the famous tournament, the biggest talking point was the possibility of Kenya being unrepresented as their champions and one of the region’s biggest clubs, Gor Mahia appeared set not to take part.
Apart from being a feared club in the Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations (Cecafa) region, Gor Mahia’s recent and current form easily makes them the envy of many. As defending Kenya champions, they are runaway leaders in the Kenyan Premier League (KPL) and are in the Group Stage competition of the CAF (Confederation of African Football) Confederation Cup.
At the Kagame Cup, Gor Mahia were slated to clash with fellow CAF Cup Group Stage opponents, Rayon Sports of Rwanda and Tanzania’s Young Africans. But Yanga, bedevilled by internal wrangles, loss of key players in the Tanzania’s transfer window and poor form in the domestic league pulled out. They sighted preparation of their impending CAF Cup clash with, incidentally, Gor Mahia on July 18 in Nairobi as the main reason of staying way form the Kagame Cup.
Then, just on Wednesday, it was the turn of the Gor Mahia camp to serve fears that they would not be coming to Tanzania. The club was facing a player revolt back in Kenya, a number of them laying down tools and refusing to take part in a KPL match in Kisumu, west of the country on Friday and inferring that travel to Tanzania would also be affected.
But the Kenyan newspaper, the ‘Daily Nation’ in its early editions on Thursday night reported that Gor Mahia would honour the Kagame Cup; the news reaching Dar es Salaam and excitement growing that fans would be able to watch Gor Mahia against the local city favourites Simba — the Tanzania Vodacom Premier League champions — Azam, the reigning Kagame Cup champions and Singida United the latest sensation challenging the Simba-Yanga-Azam hegemony.
From Nairobi, the “Nation’ quoted Gor Mahia chief executive officer Lordvick Aduda saying: “We are flying to Dar es Salaam on Friday night after our [KPL] league match [v Sony Sugar at Moi Stadium, Kisumu].”
He added: “The players’ reported strike was uncalled for. It’s a club policy that [unpaid winning] bonuses [the bone of contention and trigger of threatened strike] are paid on top of salaries. They [players] already pocketed Sh37,000 each for winning the SportPesa Super Cup and will receive the rest in the June pay,” he added.
The possible shape of the Gor Mahia team in Dar, however, was on top of excited discussion. More Gor players are reported Tanzania-bound on lucrative signings, following the sensational move of the Kenya club’s most influential forward, Rwanda international Meddie Kagere, to Simba.
Kagere’s reported demand of Sh5 million in order to sign on a new contract with Gor was met with a lower counter-offer by the club and a dangled Sh8 million by Tanzania champions, Simba that lured him to Dar es Salaam where he signed and is now the talk of town as a starter in Simba’s opening Kagame Cup opening match on Saturday against Dakadaha of Somalia.
Simba have also added to their strength former Yanga and Tanzania international goalie Deogratius ‘Dida’ Munishi from Pretoria University (South Africa) and former Azam, El Merreikh (Sudan) Cote d’Ivoire national, defender Pascal Wawa.
The tournament kicks off with two matches on Friday at the Azam [sports] Complex, Chamazi, JKU (Jeshi la Kujenga Uchumi) of Zanzibar starting at 2pm against Uganda champions Vipers and at 4pm Kagame Cup holders Azam will be on familiar ground entertaining Kator of South Sudan. Then at 7pm at the National Stadium in Dar, Singida United clash with APR, a former Kagame Cup champion.
On Thursday evening at Peacock Hotel at downtown Dar es Salaam all teams that had arrived met for a pre-tournament briefing from the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) Local Organising Committee and the Cecafa Organising Committee. Leodegar Tenga, a past Cecafa President and TFF boss Wallace Karia were among attendants to an address by the tournament director Ahmed Mgoyi and Cecafa secretary general Nicholas Musonye.
“Everything is set, we’ve received all the funds for the competition and all teams, except Gor Mahia, are here,” said Musonye but before the end of the meeting announcing that Gor Mahia will be arriving in Dar on Friday night.
The tournament is laden with highly rated teams including Azam, Simba, Gor Mahia, Vipers, Rayon Sports and APR (Rwanda) and Singida although there are also ‘dark horses’ include Burundi champions Lydia Ludic.
Below are the fixtures:
-Additional reporti
Ethiopia’s U-20 side defeated Djibouti 2-0 in an international friendly match played at the Abebe Bikila Stadium on Monday.
The two teams used the match to prepare ahead of the TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) U-20 CECAFA qualifiers slated for October 6-20th in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Nathael Solomon gave the hosts the lead after 43 minutes, and Degfie Alemu made it 2-0 three minutes into the second half.
The Djibouti team tried to push ahead to find some goal but failed to beat the Ethiopian defending line.
The Zonal qualifiers will kick start with a Group A match between Sudan and Djibouti at the Azam Complex, while hosts Tanzania will battle Kenya in a Group A match at the KMC Stadium the same day.
The 2022 runners-up South Sudan will open their Group B campaign against Burundi at the KMC Stadium, while reigning champions Uganda face Ethiopia in a match to be played at the Azam Complex all on October 7th. Tanzania will return to action on October 8th against Djibouti, the same day Sudan face Rwanda.
Nine teams will participate in the tournament with the best two teams qualifying to represent the Zone at the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations U-20 2025.
Group A: Tanzania, Sudan, Rwanda, Djibouti, Kenya
Group B: Uganda, South Sudan, Burundi, Ethiopia
A VAR workshop organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for members in the CECAFA Zone has today started in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Wallace Karia, the CECAFA President today officially opened the workshop taking place at the Peacock Hotel.
“CAF is carrying out VAR training for all Zones now and this a very good development. This training is very timely for our Zone and we thank CAF for making this happen,” added Karia.
CAF Director of Referee Department Desire Noumandiez Doue is facilitating the workshop which has attracted members from 11 countries including Libya and ends on October 5th, 2024.
Ali Ahmed, the CECAFA Referees Manager called upon the participants to make good use of the workshop because CAF is determined to have as many referees as possible able to handle the VAR system.
The participants attending the workshop are coming from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Djibouti, South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya and hosts Tanzania.
AFRICAN NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP
One extra slot for CECAFA Zone in TotalEnergies African Nations Championship 2025
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced that the CECAFA Zone will have four teams participating in the TotalEnergies African Nations Championship (CHAN) 2025.
Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will host the competition slated for February 1-28th, 2025.
“The CECAFA Zone, which includes the three host countries, will receive an additional slot due to their automatic qualification as hosts. As a result, the total number of teams qualifying for the final tournament will be increased to 19 teams,” the African Football body announced on Thursday.
CAF also announced that the road to CHAN 2025 will start with the first round of qualifiers running October 25-27, 20224 and the return leg to be played November 1-3, 2024.
The second round of the qualifiers will be played between December 20-22 for the first round, and the return legs December 25-27.
Besides the CECAFA Zone that will have four teams, all the other Zones COSAFA, WAFU A, WAFU B, UNAF and UNIFFAC have been allocated three teams in the competition.
CHAN is a competition that consists of players playing in their respective national Leagues competitions.
Uganda has qualified six times from the seven Editions of the CHAN competitions that have been held since 2009. Rwanda have qualified four times, while Sudan and Ethiopia have each qualified for CHAN three times.
The Executive Director of the Council of East and Central Africa Football Association (CECAFA) has made it clear that the regional body will keep building capacity in different areas in their quest for more football development.
John Auka Gecheo was speaking during the opening of the General Coordinators Workshop at the Swiss Lenana Mount Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya on Wednesday.
“We wish to build capacity for General Coordinators’ expertise in our member Associations who will not only be resourceful to their Federations in Football development but also to CECAFA, CAF and FIFA,” said Gecheo.
The workshop is being facilitated by CAF Match General Coordinator and Instructor, Mazen Marzouk, and moderated by Baraka Kizuguto, the CECAFA Football Development Manager.
Marzouk made it clear that the Workshop is very important because it is in line with developing a new crop of General Coordinators in CECAFA region to meet CAF and FIFA international standards.
The workshop which started yesterday and ends on Thursday forms part of the CECAFA objectives in building capacity of football match officials involved in match organization.
Apart from Sudan, all the other CECAFA Member Associations Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Eritrea, Tanzania, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Rwanda and Zanzibar have sent two members to attend the Workshop.
Last month CECAFA also held Women’s Executive Leadership Workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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