The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Majuto Omary
11 November 2009
Libya will not participate at the forthcoming East and Central Africa Senior Challenge Cup that would kick off on November 28 in Nairobi, Kenya.
The secretary general of the Council of East and Central Africa Football Association (Cecafa), Nicholas Musonye confirmed that Libya failed to confirm their participation on time.
Musonye said the Libyan soccer body had earlier shown interest to test their team in the Cecafa event, but have remained silent since then.
"We were ready to welcome them and threw away other invitations, but it's unfortunate that they have let us down," he blamed.
According to him, 12 countries would line up their troops for the coveted regional championship.
"We've 12 teams gunning for the event and Zambia will take part as an invited team," he said.
Zambia have of recent become regular competitors of the Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup.
He explained that they would draw up fixtures after holding a meeting in a couple of days.
The outspoken official called upon all teams to mount their preparations in order to make the championship more competitive and useful.
The teams, which have confirmed participations include; Tanzania mainland, Zanzibar, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Ethiopia.
Others are Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan, Zambia and the hosts, Kenya.
Besides, Musonye said the Kenyan government donated USD 100,000 that is equivalent to Sh123million to support Cecafa's efforts to stage the event in Nairobi.
Nairobi last hosted the tournament in 1994, the year Tanzania battled it out to emerge the regional champions.
"We thank them for the support, it has boosted our hopes to run the competition smoothly," said Musonye.
However, he said they still needed USD 200,000 (Sh264 million) in order to cover all expenses of the competition.
Meanwhile, the TFF has announced four teams that would compete at the Tusker Cup slated for mid December.
The TFF's secretary general, Fredrick Mwakalebela named the teams as Simba Sports Club, Young Africans, Mtibwa Sugar and Azam FC.
However, the official said they would announce the teams from neighbouring countries later.
"We've selected the teams according to their current performances and we'll name the rest later," he said.
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