Lessons from Tanzania
What you need to know:
- The three biggest clubs in Tanzania’s football league, Simba FC, Azam FC and Yanga, treated fans to pre-season hype.
- The crowds at the Azam and Simba festivities at the weekend were extraordinary.
In the past one week, Kenyan football fans have been treated to inspiring events by Tanzanian clubs that have put the country’s football in the limelight.
The three biggest clubs in Tanzania’s football league, Simba FC, Azam FC and Yanga, treated fans to pre-season hype and entertainment as they paraded new players poached from Kenyan clubs and elsewhere.
Serial champions Simba SC were celebrating 2020 Simba Day, a culmination of various activities that peaked with last Saturday’s unveiling of the 2020-21 squad at a friendly match against Burundi’s seasoned club, Vital ‘O’, whom Simba mauled 6-0 at Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam.
Across the city at the Azam Complex in Chamazi, on Sunday, Azam FC also uncovered their artillery, and new jersey for the coming season, lining up a friendly against Tanzania Cup finalists Namungo FC that highlighted the 2020 Azam Festival. Azam won the match 2-1.
The crowds at the Azam and Simba festivities at the weekend were extraordinary, especially at the Simba gig in which the 60,000-seater Benjamin Mkapa Stadium was packed to the rafters.
Tanzanian celebrity artistes Diamond Platnumz and Ali Kiba headlined the entertainment for the Azam and Simba parties. Yanga’s week-long pre-season festivities will climax tomorrow, with another Bongo star, Harmonize, working up the crowd at the Benjamin Mkapa Stadium.
While taking cognisance of obvious challenges in handling the threat of Covid-19 in stadiums, Kenyan football clubs, fans and sports administrators can learn a lot from the three clubs.
We must learn from Tanzania that passion and organised support for our clubs will certainly help lift the standards of the game. The country’s league, the Vodacom Premier League, has attracted multiple sponsors and players from around the continent.
Some of the players who have migrated to the Tanzanian league from the Kenyan Premier League in the past year include Francis Kahata, Meddie Kagere, Farouk Shikalo, Joash Onyango and Tanzanian nationals Dickson Ambudo and David Mapigano who returned to play at home last month.
