AfricaPress-Tanzania: SIMBA SC has announced that they are putting good measures to facilitate the arrival of their four players who are in their respective countries before June 1st this year.
The club has already started regrouping players ahead of the resumption of Mainland Premier League and Azam Sports Federation Cup (ASFC), games as directed recently by President John Magufuli who graced sports activities to resume from June 1st this year.
The four stars who are yet to jet in for the reigning champions are Clatous Chama (Zambia), Meddie Kagere (Rwanda), Sharouf Shiboub (Sudan) and Francis Kahata (Kenya).
But, speaking yesterday, the club’s Manager, Patrick Rweyemamu said they are working hard to make sure that by June 1st all the players should be present to start final preparations to complete the league season.
“We will first meet on Wednesday (tomorrow) to make good plans on how to finish the season and it will also be a chance to test our players to know their fitness levels. “It is just a matter of time and God willing, in the upcoming 3 to 4 days, the full squad will be ready for the remaining matches,” he said.
Also, in his remarks, the team’s doctor Yassin Gembe said he has been communicating with the players such that all of them are fit to return back on the battlefield.
“Despite listening from them that they are fit, we will take time to thoroughly test all of them so as to be assured that they are really 100 percent fit for the games,” he said.
However, after Simba, it is Azam FC which also have many players (seven) outside the country hence making it difficult to bring them back timely to wind up the season.
The Ice-cream making side have three players in Ghana (Razak Abalora, Dan Amoa and Yakubu Mohamed), one player in Uganda (Nicolas Wadada) and three players in Zimbabwe (Never Tigere, Bruce Kangwa and Donald Ngoma) who will have to wait a bit longer before jetting back into the country.
Recently, Azam Information Officer, Thabit Zakaria said for now, it is impossible to get them back timely to start preparations of completing the season.
“We are unable to facilitate the travel of our players who are in Ghana, Uganda and Zimbabwe due to lockdowns imposed by these countries as such, international air transport still prohibited. “This means that if the top flight league restart soon, we will not have them on board hence we will have to use the available players. Even our Head Coach Aristica Cioaba who is in Romania cannot return back timely.
“As such, we have managed to initiate the return of the Assistant Coach, Vivier Bahati from Burundi on Sunday who will travel by road as a result of air transport restrictions in his country such that when he will reach Tanzanian soil preferably in Kigoma, he will then board a plane.
“Bahati will then act as the Head Coach upon league resumption but he will be getting directives from Cioaba himself on how to make the team,” Zakaria said.
In another development, Zakaria revealed that his club has wholeheartedly welcomed government decision to choose Azam Complex as one of the venues to host the remaining top flight league encounters.
