Neglected grassroots deny Tanzania promising football talents

What you need to know:

  • Despite such passion for the beautiful game and a massive fan base, Tanzania is still far behind in terms of development of the sport due to a number of factors including lack of financial support, professionalism and proper governance.

In the slums, villages or cities across Tanzania it’s common to see young and old kicking a football around whether for fun or in organised football games.
Despite such passion for the beautiful game and a massive fan base, Tanzania is still far behind in terms of development of the sport due to a number of factors including lack of financial support, professionalism and proper governance.

But, everything starts from the roots. If the roots are not well groomed, how can the plant be expected to flourish? So is the football game.

We visited Miko Villa football club and got to know how it operates. From the 9intervoiews. We gathered that many community football clubs survive without sponsorships or football deals.

When one look at performance, Miko Villa is proof that Tanzania doesn’t lack talent. There are young talents which can perform in international leagues, rather we lack both moral and financial support.

In an interview with Issa Masoud - Coordinator of Ndondo cup he said they came up with the Ndondo Cup idea after “it got to a point where we felt that the football administrators had neglected grassroots football for a long time.”

Because of this, Issa Masoud, Shaffih Dauda and their team felt it was time to go back to basics and revamp the street football clubs both registered and unregistered. They are doing so with a belief that it is from the streets were most football stars are molded into future stars. And so Ndondo Cup was born.

 

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