AfricaPress-Tanzania: ONCE again the Africa Kabaddi Championship that was early scheduled for this month in Dar es Salaam has been postponed.
Organised by the Tanzania Kabaddi Sports Association (TKSA) in collaboration with Africa Kabaddi Federation (AKF), the annual competition has now been pushed from June 29 to 5th July this year.
Abdallah Nyoni, a TKSA chairman confirmed in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the Africa Kabaddi Championship 2021 will not be held this month as planned.
The championship brings together top African national men’s and women’s teams organised under the auspices and sanction of Africa Kabaddi Confederation and World Kabaddi.
Nyoni said the postponement of the Africa Kabaddi championship came after the Africa Kabaddi Confederation Executive committee Zoom meeting held on 10th March, 2021.
He said that the meeting had agreed to postpone the Africa Kabaddi Championship 2021 in Dar es Salaam due to persisting global corona pandemic issues in some of its members.
“In the meantime, we Tanzanians side should proceed with other planned activities such as finding sponsorship, finding a media partner, preparation of the national team, marketing and promotion of the Kabaddi sports,” he said.
“TKSA thanks support of its partners such as Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioners office, the Ministry of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports along with National Sports Council of Tanzania, India High Commissioner to Tanzania and our patron working hard to support the preparations of the eagerly awaited event from the beginning,” added Nyoni.
He stressed that: “It is my hope that they will continue to support us in the preparations for the tournament, on the other hand we still invite contributions and funding, we need more sponsorship for preparations of the national team especially in trial matches and training camping.”
Nyoni said apart from that they need to purchase all necessary equipment including Jersey, shoes and kabaddi playing mat in readiness for the event. Coronavirus has continued to halt sporting events.
The event was initially planned for last December but has since then been postponed. Tanzania has been given the chance to host the event for the first time in history as several countries like Kenya, Cameroon, Egypt, Mauritius, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zimbabwe had already confirmed their participation.
According to Nyoni they have also received requests from England, Malaysia, Taiwan, Iraq and India who also would like to join the competition as guests teams.
