AfricaPress-Tanzania: UNDENIABLY, it is crystal clear that the only thing that football devotees are chattering about is naturally Simba SC’s brilliant fourth league title triumph, which, as it turns out, is the Msimbazi Street side’s fourth title on the trot.
Indeed, after a titanic tussle for the league trophy with their nemesis, Yanga, Simba SC effectively wrapped up the title race with a sublime 2-0 victory against Coastal Union last Sunday, with the Msimbazi Street side’s talismanic skipper John Bocco and Chris Mugalu bagging the vital goals needed for victory.
Strikingly, Simba have literally called the shots in the domestic top flight during the spell of the last four years, which clearly underscores their unchallenged supremacy over the clubs jostling for honours in the Mainland Premier League, yes, Yanga and Azam FC included.
Triumphing four straight times in the expectantly epic battle for the league title is no mean feat.
In fact, it could even be quite justly described as a virtuoso performance or a veritable football tour de force.
Indeed, it also clearly reveals that Simba have been loath to loosen their vice-like grip on the league trophy during the last four years and that other clubs have literally run out of answers on how to break the Msimbazi Street outfit’s stranglehold on Tanzanian football.
Nonetheless, this sets things up rather nicely for next season as one doubtlessly expects that the likes of Azam FC and Yanga will use the ‘off season’ to fortify their respective squads in a bid to unseat Simba from the apex of domestic league football, which is the coveted top-most perch in which they have comfortably ensconced themselves for an amazing four consecutive years now.
Warm congratulations, then, should heartily be offered to Simba as their four-year reign of dominance has totally silenced the ranks of the naysayers and doubters.
Moving on, as a sport, it is fair to argue that national table-tennis has experienced almost wholly declining fortunes during the last couple of years.
Indeed, it is an incontestable fact that domestic table-tennis tournaments have been worryingly few and far between during this period.
It could also be tentatively said that domestic field hockey tournaments have increasingly become rarities in recent years.
Sadly, this litany of woes concerning low-profile sports on the local scene incredibly gets even worse.
Consider the state of affairs in local handball. Indeed, it is mightily arduous for anyone to recollect the last time when a handball championship was staged on the domestic sports landscape.
The pressing question of the hour is of course: why have table-tennis, field hockey, and handball been allowed to disturbingly descend into near-stagnation?
A considerable part of the answer to this question inevitably has to do with funding or perhaps more appropriately, the lack thereof.
Indeed, it is an ill-concealed secret here in the country that barring football, other sports, particularly the low-profile ones, have unfortunately had to contend with an almost chronic lack of funds for quite some time now.
This brings us to another weighty question, one of urgent importance: why have we nearly haplessly failed to solve the seemingly insoluble conundrum of a lack of funding, which has confronted a plethora of sports for many a year?
Well, in my humble estimation, there can be no escaping the fact that the authorities will simply have to do more where this long-neglected matter is concerned.
Thus, one would like to propose that the authorities could set aside some amount of funds for each domestic sport on a yearly basis.
Indeed, one is sanguine that if this were to happen, the future could look rosier for many low-profile sports, particularly the three afore-said ones that have partly been at the heart of this sporting narrative.
