From: michael seium (michael.seium@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Aug 20 2009 - 09:35:51 EDT
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**As Eritrea's under 17 team plays today, Here is a little information about
CECAFA. Good luck to our Red Sea Boys. I hope they surprise everyone. They
are capable of doing it. Even though they fell a little short in their last
bid to make it to the under 17 African nations cup last year by losing their
last round, they have been a source of inspiration for **E**ritrean Soccer.
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*CECAFA PLAYS A ROLE IN UNITING EAST AFRICAN COUNTRIES/CECAFA.com*
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*As the Eastern African countries work towards reviving the East African
Community there is no denying the fact that sports and football in
particular had done a lot to unite the region.Even at times when the
political atmosphere between Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania has not been at its
best football among the three countries has always brought them
together.Football in the region is organised by the Council of East and
Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA) that is based in Nairobi. It
is headed by former Uganda International striker Dennis Obua Otima as
President with Kenyan Nicholas Musonye, a former journalist, as Secretary
General.
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*CECAFA is arguably the oldest sub-regional football organisation in
Africa. Founded unofficially in 1927 by a British businessman based in
Nairobi, the event was initially given his name – Gossage. Mr. Gossage was
a shrewd businessman based in Nairobi and loved football and sports in
General. After the completion of the “Long Snake” – the famous Uganda –
Kenya Railway in the early 1900’s, there were many idle African men
struttling around the emerging Nairobi and Kampala cities. Most of them
were indigenous Africans, Asians and Nubians who had provided labour for the
construction of the Railway line.*
*Gossage thought the best social event to keep these men active was sports
and more precisely football. So in 1927, he initiated a tournament
involving Kenya and Uganda and named it Gossage Cup. The tournament was
played between Kampala and Nairobi for many years and was one of the popular
events in Africa during that time.*
*Tanganyika (Now Tanzania) joined in 1944 and entered the tournament for the
first time in 1945. The Island of Zanzibar, then controlled by the Arab
traders joined the fray in 1948 and the tournament became four-nation
event. The event kept the name Gossage Cup until 1963 after independence of
all the four nations and that name was changed to the East African Challenge
Cup. The tournament remained a four-nation event until 1973 when its doors
opened to more members.*
*At a special meeting in Nairobi, members from Somalia, Zambia and Ethiopia
sought membership and it was at this stage that the name CECAFA was
conceived. The event has now attracted seven members and the first
Headquarters was temporarily shifted to Mogadishu, Somalia before it
reverted to Nairobi, and the tournament was henceforth re-named the CECAFA
Senior Challenge cup.*
*In 1974, the members of the now expanded Council introduced the tournament
for champion clubs and the first Club Cup Championship was inaugurated in
Dar-E-Salaam, Tanzania in 1974.*
*Sudan and Malawi joined the growing family in 1975. Then in 1981,
Zimbabwe, fresh from independence victory joined the CECAFA family. However
in 1994 after the collapse of apartheid in South Africa, COSAFA was formed
and naturally, the three Southern nations, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe left
CECAFA to join their rightful zone – COSAFA.*
*The departure of the three countries opened the doors for Rwanda, Burundi
and Eritrea, the same with Djibouti joining in 1995. This raised the CECAFA
membership to 11 countries namely: - Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania,
Ethiopia, Eritrea, Zanzibar, Somalia, Rwanda, Djibouti and Burundi.*
*Since 1996, when Sudan hosted the Challenge Cup with the new members on
board, the Council has grown strong in maintaining the status of its
membership and regularly hosting the Challenge Cup, the Club tournament and
re-launched the Under-19 Youth tournament in Zanzibar in August, 2003. The
Challenge Cup and Club tournaments are held annually while the Youth
tournament is staged after every two years.*
*CECAFA events have a lot of Goodwill from the political leadership of most
of its membership. Presidents Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Amani Karume
(Zanzibar), Jakaya Kikwete (Tanzania) all sponsor or have shown an interest
in supporting CECAFA activities.*
*There is therefore, doubt that CECAFA is miles ahead in uniting the region.
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