Cecafa heads meet to plan regions football growth

The Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations (Cecafa) presidents on Wednesday convened at FUFA House in Kampala, Uganda, as they sought to draw plans to raise the football profile of the region.

Football Kenya Federation (FKF) president Nick Mwendwa was among the seven federation bosses including the host, Eng. Moses Magogo in the meeting held at FUFA House boardroom, as reported by Fufa.com.

Rwanda’s Vincent Nzamwita, Jamal Malinzi (Tanzania), Juneidi Tilmo (Ethiopia), Hon. Ndikuniyo Reverien (Burundi) and Ravia Faina of CAF’s newly approved member nation Zanzibar were also present.

Secretary General Nicholas Musonye was not part of the meeting, with the long-serving official making  rife over a time.

The association heads came up with a nine-point resolution programme, in an effort to revive dwindling football fortunes in the region.

Top in the agenda is amending the Cecafa constitution, and convening of a congress for as soon as possible.

They also resolved to work towards installing permanent regional headquarters, and improvement of Cecafa competitions with emphasis on the youth events (U-15, U-17, and U-20 for both girls and boys) and beach soccer.

The presidents also agreed to work on improving the technical aspects of the game in terms of refereeing, coaching, administration and medical, marketing and communication for the region with re-branding high on the agenda.

The heads also laid a foundation on Cecafa submitting an official bid to host the Africa Nations Cup finals in the near future, seeking also to have effective representation in the CAF Executive Committee.

Also envisaged in the in the programme is a proposal to FIFA to access funds to support the council activities in line with development of football at youth, women and beach soccer.

During the 39th CAF Ordinary Assembly in March, several heads who spoke to Citizen Digital hinted need for convening such meetings regularly, noting lack of frequent consultations among the stakeholders was killing the sport in the region.

South Sudan, Sudan and Djibouti missed the meeting with apology.