AfricaPress-Tanzania: TANZANIA Cricket Association (TCA) is considering of preparing a special tournament to honour the late President John Pombe Magufuli.
President Magufuli died in Dar es Salaam on March 17 of heart complications that he had lived with for about a decade, according to his successor, president Samia Suluhu Hassan.
TCA’s information officer, Atif Salim said yesterday that the association has a tradition of honouring and remembering those who had immense contribution to the country’s development, including sports.
Already TCA is annually running a tournament christened ‘Nyerere Tournament’s that is named after the founding president Julius Kambarage Nyerere who died in 1999.
Salim said there are plans also to organise the tournament that will be named after the third phase president, Benjamin William Mkapa.
In the meantime, we have suspended all cricket activities as the nation is mourning, but we will probably meet in few weeks to come to put other arrangements and see how we will honour them in one way or another” “Our executive committee will meet to see how we honour our beloved leaders who played a great role to spearhead the country’s development and took their time to inspire and develop sporting events”, said Salim.
TCA is among other national sports associations that have suspended all sporting events in the country for the period of 14 days of mourning Magufuli.
The late Magufuli was also an ardent sportsman, who inspired sports development through different ways including attending matches. He recently named the National Stadium after the name of the late Benjamin Mkapa who initiated the construction of 60,000-seater stadium in Dar es Salaam.
Magufuli was unfortunate to be the first president to die in power and engineered for the transformation of the country in various sector. His sudden demise is being mourned by people of all walks of life, among others, sportsmen, artistes and musicians.
The country’s top flight teams, Simba and Young Africans have also expressed their heartfelt condolences to pray for Magufuli’s soul to rest in eternal place. The fallen leader will be laid to rest on March 25 in Chato in Geita Region.
