Money has never been a challenge to Cecafa – Musonye

Money has never been a challenge in as far as organising the Cecafa Senior Challenge competition is concerned, Nicholas Musonye has said.

The senior championship failed to take place in 2014, 2016 and 2018, but is penciled to make a return this year.

According to Cecafa  Secretary General Musonye, the tourney failed to take place last year after Zanzibar, the host designate, pulled out while Kenya, picked as an alternative host, also bolted out at the last minute, but due to lack of funds.

“We didn’t have monetary challenge, Kenya was supposed to host but you know they were changing their format of the league, that’s the problem because we have a sponsor which is Azam, we had money for it but we didn’t have a host after Kenya pulled out because of the issue of  calendar change. We had an issue of getting another host to replace them,” Musonye said.

After having a consultative meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia two days ago, the committee decided to have this year’s senior championship held in Uganda from December 1-19.

At the same time Musonye noted that the regional competition is aiming to increase the prize money for winners, adding that they are working hard to rope in more sponsors.

At the Cecafa Executive meeting, which took place on the AU Summit sidelines, members endorsed the hosting of seven competitions in the zone in this  calendar year.

The tight programme will commence in June and run back-to-back to December. The activities endorsed for this year and funded by FIFA are;- the Under 17 Challenge Cup in Eritrea, Under 17 Women Challenge Cup in Kenya, Under 20 Women and Under 20 Men Challenge Cup in Uganda.

The remaining two are the Kagame Cup that will make a return and be held in Rwanda and Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup in Uganda, funded by Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Azam TV respectively.

The Senior Challenge Cup was last held in Kenya in 2017 with Harambee Stars defeating Zanzibar in the final to lift the gong.