Author: BENJAMIN BEN
AfricaPress-Tanzania: ALL roads in Dar es Salaam will lead to Benjamin Mkapa Stadium as fans expect to pack the venue to witness a charity football match between team Mbwana Samatta and Ali Kiba today.
The annual football game is specifically arranged to source funds which is channeled towards helping underprivileged societies and this year’s proceeds, according to the organisers, will be disbursed to help the education sector.
Speaking in the city prior to the match, Kiba said they were grateful to the government for declaring that sport activities should resume after the country shrugged off the Covid-19 scare.
“Initially, we thought that this event would not be held this year following the outbreak of Coronavirus but after the state announced that it is safe to resume sports, we had to plan about it in a short time and here we are,” he said.
Furthermore, the Bongo Flavour artiste named some of the players to form his squad this afternoon as Bernard Morrison, Bakari Mwamnyeto, Ibrahim Ajib, David Molinga, Said Ndemla, Aggrey Morris among others while their Head Coach will be Juma Mgunda.
On his part, Samatta said they planned to stage a unique event this year but the Covid-19 has greatly affected most of their plans.
“Among other things, I wanted to invite two players from TP Mazembe as well as a trainer at Aston Villa to partake in the event but due to fears of Covid-19, we will not be able to have them perhaps next time,” he said.
Again, the Aston Villa striker hoped that many people will come to watch the game whose entry charges have been pegged at 5000/- and 3000/- respectively.
Among the ammunitions for Team Samatta include John Bocco, Mohamed Hussein, Mrisho Ngasa, Erasto Nyoni, Kelvin John, Kelvin Yondani, Shomari Kapombe and Idd Nado among others.
However, team Samatta has been dominating in all the previous two seasons when the match was being played as they won 3-1 in 2018, 6-3 in 2019 and this year, it remains unsolved puzzle.
