Sports bodies failing national status test

Swimmers dive in the during the national swimming championship at Heaven of Peace Academy. PHOTO | FILE     

What you need to know:

One of the requirements they had to meet for national status is having regional sports bodies in at least 10 regions, as per rules and regulations of the National Sports Council (NSC).


Dar es Salaam. Though the country boasts 58 sports associations, only six meet the criteria for recognition as national bodies, The Citizen can reveal.

These are Tanzania Football Federation (TFF), Athletics Tanzania (AT), Tanzania Netball Association (Chaneta), Tanzania Basketball Federation (TBF), Tanzania Volleyball Associations (Tava) and Boxing Federation of Tanzania (BFT).

One of the requirements they had to meet for national status is having regional sports bodies in at least 10 regions, as per rules and regulations of the National Sports Council (NSC).

Two-thirds of these regional associations need to have district bodies, whose leaders can feature in voting exercises to elect regional leaders as per regulations.

Speaking exclusively with The Citizen, the Registrar of Club and Sports Association Ibrahim Mkwawa said many of the country’s sports bodies had failed to meet the requirements.

Others have just benefitted from the national status recognition through what he termed “consideration”.

This list includes the Tanzania Swimming Association (TSA), Tanzania Golf Union (TGU), Tanzania Cricket Association (TCA), and Tanzania Table Tennis Association (TTTA).

“We have the mandate to give the country’s sports associations the national status,” said Mkwawa.

He decried the fact that there are no regional and district associations for sports such as golf, which is played mostly in Dar es Salaam, Morogoro, Arusha, Kilimanjaro and Kagera regions.

“The same applies to swimming, cricket and others. They are not exempted; they need to meet our criteria, and we need to see these sports played at the regional as well as district levels,” said Mkwawa.

He also said there were some sports associations that had previously operated under national status recognition, but later had that status revoked.

“The Tanzania Professional Boxing Commission (TPBC) was for a long time recognised as a national sport body, but after it failed to meet our regulations, we decided to cancel that status,” he said.

He hailed TFF for spreading its wings all over the country.

“We emphasise that sports bodies must have district and regional associations; the whole point is that we want to promote sports everywhere,” said Mkwawa.