The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Majuto Omary
20 June 2011
Dar es Salaam — It’s now official that Tanzania Breweries Limited (TBL) will spend Sh300 million on this year’s East and Central Africa club championship kicking off on Saturday at the National Stadium.The figure is Sh700 million short of the money the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) and the Council of East and Central African Football Associations (Cecafa) need to make the tournament a success.
TBL marketing manager David Minja confirmed yesterday that the beer brewing firm will sponsor the tournament under its Castle Lager brand. “We have decided to sponsor this year’s Cecafa Club Championship for the benefit of football stakeholders,” Minja said.
“The money we’ve injected into the tournament might not be enough, but this is what we can offer for now because we acted on a short notice from the TFF,” he added.
For the past two weeks, TFF and Cecafa have been struggling to secure sponsorship for the championship also known as Kagame Cup.The championship is partly bankrolled by Rwanda President Paul Kagame, who injects US$60,000 (approximately Sh70 million) for prize money.
Minja admitted that they stand to benefit in sponsoring the tournament and insisted that they feel proud to be associated with the regional event.For his part, TFF president Leodegar Tenga praised the company for the support and called on other firms to follow suit. Tenga, who doubles as Cecafa chairman, noted that most serious sponsors now invest in football because the mileage in return is big in-terms of visibility through the media in a public relations sense.
He said they still need at least Sh500 million more to check various challenges pertaining to hosting the tournament.”We encourage many other companies to join hands with TBL in sponsoring the Cecafa club tournament and other Cecafa-organised competitions because gone are the days when you got very minimum mileage,” said Tenga.
This year’s tournament was to take place in Khartoum, Sudan but it was moved to Dar es Salaam following civil war in some parts of Sudan.Cecafa decided not to invite guest teams this time around in desperate attempt to cut costs.
Initially, the council had invited various Egypt’s Al Ahly and Liberty Professionals of Ghana in order to add some flair in the tournament.Mainland champions Young Africans, Simba and Zanzibar giants Ocean Views are among teams lined up for the championship.
Also in the list are Uganda’s Bunnamwaya, Ulinzi of Kenya, Ethiopia’s St. George, El-Merreikh and Al Hilal both of Sudan.Burundi’s Vital’O, Port of Djibouti, Red Sea of Eritrea, Somalia’s Elman and Rwanda’s Etincelles and defending champions APR will also compete in the event.
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