AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE National U-17 women’s team striker Aisha Masaka has urged her colleagues to continue practicing at their homes until when the government will announce that it is safe for sports activities to resume.
Tanzania, like many other countries has temporarily suspended all sports related activities as a move to contain fast spread of coronavirus which has shaken the entire universe.
This, has therefore led players to go back to their respective homes until when the state will declare that it is safe to restart mass gatherings as well as sports events.
But speaking recently, Masaka insisted that they must go on with individual training sessions to keep themselves in good shape despite most of them being away on vacation.
“For us, we still have a big responsibility for our country because there are many international competitions coming up which requires us not to relax but rather train hard ahead of such games,” she said.
She added that she hopes that the appeal made by the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) towards the Uganda Under-17 team that they used over aged players when they met in the second leg of U-17 women’s world cup would be favourably won.
“We lost the game and that is normal in football but we hope that TFF will win the appeal because we still have aspiration to play in the world cup finals,” Mashaka said.
She then seized the opportunity to alert her friends to be extremely careful to avoid contacting coronavirus insisting that it is a dangerous disease.
In a related development, Masaka hailed her current cub Alliance Queens for accommodating her until now when she is capable to be seen by many people across the world.
“They gave me an opportunity to feature in their first squad from where I excelled until I got the chance to be called into the national women team,” she said.
She continued: “When I got a chance to play in the national team, I had to work hard so as to play regularly and thereby be watched by other teams on the continent.”
At the moment, the Masaka is featured in all three national teams (Under-17, Under-20 and the senior team) and she scored five goals for her team during their World Cup U-17 qualifying matches before bowing down 5-0 to Uganda.
However, after the results, TFF Technical Director, Oscar Mirambo, said they have already reported the matter to the relevant authorities with regards to allegedly Uganda fielding ineligible players.
“It is unfathomed for a player to be in the U-17 team since 2007 to 2020…they will have to prove at what age those players were initially selected to feature in the team,” Mirambo said.
Tanzania coach Bakari Shime also complained that Uganda had fielded five overage players. He said the five players were not included in the team during the first leg.
“We have lost the game but our opponents have definitely not been honest enough… they chose to field over-aged players,” Shime lamented.
Uganda will now meet the winner between Cameroon and Sao Tome. Cameroon won 4-0 over Sao Tome in the first leg. The Women’s U17 World Cup will be staged in India from November 2 to 21.
