Football Association (FA) Presidents from Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA) have stepped up the bid to have the game of football in the region develop.
In a meeting attended by over seven FA presidents from CECAFA region at FUFA house Mengo on Wednesday, there was a unanimous agreement to devise means of promotion and marketing football in the region.
Among the FA bosses that were present included; Nicolas Mwendwa (Kenya),Vincent Nzamwita (Rwanda), Jamal Milinzi (Tanzania), Juneidi Tilmo (Ethiopia), Ndikuniyo Reverien (Burundi),Ravia Faina (Zanzibar) and the host, Moses Magogo (Uganda).
The football heads confessed the region has lagged behind in as far as development of football is concerned and thus they want to start on the revival programme as soon as possible.
Moses Magogo tabled a proposal for the CECAFA region to host the prestigious African Cup of Nations tournament in the near future.
“I believe that with the support from government, we have the capacity to host African Cup of Nations in about 8 years from now. We only need to organize ourselves as the Cecafa region and have the structures in place,” he stated.
The Football Presidents also resolved that their umbrella (CECAFA) needs to have headquarters as soon as possible for easy monitoring and control.
Football in the CECAFA region has developed at a snail’s pace with several challenges key among them being financial.
The annual Cecafa club and national team tournaments did not take place last week due to shortage of funds and thus the Football bosses have come out to make resolutions that will help to revive the game.
Salient resolutions made
– Amend the CECAFA constitution.
– Convene a Congress for CECAFA as soon as possible
– Ensure that CECAFA region gets permanent headquarters
– Improve on the CECAFA competitions with emphasis on the youth events (U-15, U-17, and U-20 for both girls and boys) and beach soccer.
– Improve the technical aspects of the game in terms of refereeing, coaching, administration and medical
– Improve marketing and communication for the CECAFA region with re-branding high on the agenda.
– CECAFA Region to submit an official bid to host the Africa Nations Cup finals in the near future.
– CECAFA Region to have effective representation on the CAF Executive Committee.
– Come up with a proposal to FIFA on how to access fund to support CECAFA activities in line with development of football at youth, women and beach soccer level.