AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE Tanzania Premier League Board (TPLB), has said there is nothing wrong with the government’s decision to select two centres to host the remaining league matches of the season.
On Friday, the government picked Dar es Salaam and Mwanza as the two centres to stage four football leagues with the former hosting Mainland Premier League matches and Azam Sports Federation Cup (ASFC), while the latter will play host to First Division League (FDL) and Second Division League (SDL), duels respectively.
This was revealed by the Minister for Information, Culture, Arts and Sports, Harrison Mwakyembe who said the four leagues have to be completed to get winners who will represent the country in CAF organised clubs tournaments next season as well as to determine teams that will earn promotion to upper divisions and those, which will be relegated to lower divisions.
Giving his immediate reaction on the matter, TPLB Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Almasi Kasongo said they have welcomed the development positively.
“Our job is to implement what the government has said and for our part, we don’t see any problem for the government to pick the two centers,” Kasongo briefly said.
Another contributor on the topic was Singida United Director, Festo Sanga, who also lauded the government for coming up with such conclusion on how to wrap up the season.
“As Singida United, we see nothing wrong with the announcement from the minister responsible for sports and what is required now is implementation”.
“It will somewhat affect the performance of our team upon considering that out of nine games remaining for us, six of them were supposed to be played at our own backyard and basing on the poor position we current occupy, if we played the games at our territory with full support from fans, we could have won many matches but there is no way out,” he said.
Additionally, Sanga noted that cost of living in Dar es Salaam is high hence he hopes that the government will extend a helping hand to accommodate all the teams in the city throughout the period required to finish the season.
“We all know that this is an emergency, nobody expected things to end this way. At the moment, we are building psychology aspect of players on how they will be able to play games without fans,” Sanga said.
On several occasion, Sanga has been heard saying that his side will never be relegated this season despite occupying the last slot on the log.
Singida United sit at the tail of the 20-team table with 15 points from 29 games after winning only three games, posting six draws and losing 20 encounters to make their survival this season depend on a miracle.
