Dar Es Salaam — The Council for East and Central African Football Associations (Cecafa) region has struggled to qualify teams for big tournaments due to the lack of proper planning right from the grassroots.

Cecafa Chairman and Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) President, Leodegar Tenga observed this in an exclusive interview with the Confederation of African Football (CAF) website.

"I think we are not investing enough in terms of planning right from the grassroots like our brothers in North, South and West Africa plans for World Cup and the Africa Cup of Nations," Tenga said, responding to the question on why the region has struggled to qualify teams for the World Cup and the Africa Cup of Nations.

"Football is big business and we need to invest more in teams, up-grade coaching and also our administration if we ever think of qualifying teams for the big stage like the World Cup and also always get teams make it to the Africa Cup of Nations," he explained.

Tenga however held that the region has made great progress in the past few years and was ecstatic on how Cecafa teams performed in the start of the Afcon 2012 qualifiers.

"I think almost all the teams that played at home won their matches apart from Ethiopia and this is a good trend. For teams to qualify in such tournaments, it's always good to try and pick all points at home and also travel and bag some few points away," the former Tanzania skipper said.

He was particularly impressed with his Tanzania's Taifa Stars promising start to its qualifying campaign after pulling out a 1-1 draw away to North African giants, Algeria. Tenga who captained Tanzania in the 1980 African Nations Cup finals said, "I was happy when I heard that my country Tanzania picked an away draw in Algeria.

But all teams in the region don't have to relax, but have to continue planning seriously for all the games." The Cecafa boss believes with more professional players the region can tread where their North and West African brothers are, arguing that professionals would help maximize their chances to qualify for big stage competition.

"Personally I believe we must give all players chance to go play professional football without hindrance because it opens more doors for football development in the long run. Look at West African countries like Nigeria that have many professionals.

"It helps them in terms of marketability of more players and also for their national teams since these pros have been exposed enough and do everything in a professional manner with a lot of discipline. Let's send as many players to the professional stage and you will see how we yield the fruits."

Further about the progress the Cecafa region has made so far, Tenga said; "We have made great progress in terms of attracting more sponsors in our regional tournaments and this basically creates more competiveness because cash prizes have also been increased say for the Challenge Cup and the Kagame Club championships.

Calling in guest sides like Zambia and Malawi for the senior Challenge Cup has also helped expose our players in the region better."

Agencies