AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE Tanzania Premier League Board (TPLB), said they will continue to honor government’s directive not to resume sports activities until the current threat of COVID-19 is totally curbed.
Initially, the government ordered a one month break to all sports activities as one measure to contain the spread of the coronavirus, but that period has since been extended until further notice.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said suspension of all sporting activities and events that are of a huge public nature will remain intact, as part of strengthening preventive measures to avoid the spread of COVID-19.
In a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office in Dodoma, Majaliwa said there will be no change to the suspension imposed to all sporting activities about 30 days ago until further notice.
The decision was announced shortly after the National Coordination Task Force Committee in charge of the fight against the spread of COVID-19 pandemic that convened in Dodoma on Tuesday under the Chairmanship of Premier Majaliwa.
Responding to this latest move, TPLB Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Almas Kasongo, said yesterday that his board will only resume the games as per the government’s recommendation.
“As of now, everything is in the hands of the government which is strictly assessing the situation on the ground. When they will declare that it is safe to recommence league matches, we will comply immediately,” he said.
He added that for now, they should just continue waiting for the situation to be contained, saying it came as an emergency such that nobody expected it to reach to this stage.
However, the TPLB boss disclosed that so far, they have not been badly affected by the coronavirus outbreak, insisting that even before the outbreak; The top flight league would still be on pause to pave way for Africa Nations Championship (CHAN) finals, which were due to take place from April 4th to 25th this year in Cameroon.
“Until now, the league could have still been suspended since our team qualified to play in the CHAN finals, which were scheduled to end on April 25th as such, on 1st or 2nd May is when we planned to restart the league,” he said. He then urged people to adhere to all precaution measures to avoid contracting the COVID-19, saying health is important than anything else.
“We should seek God’s intervention into this issue so that by his grace, this pandemic is banished and things return to normal,” Kasongo said.
Also, Kasongo said he talked with the LaLiga representative to Tanzania, who is in Spain, saying they are also waiting official announcement from their government on when the sports activities will resume.
Tanzania is among the countries in the world which suspended all sports related events in a move to stop the fast spread of the coronavirus and in this case, the affected leagues in the country include the Mainland Premier League, First Division League (FDL) and Second Division League (SDL).
