No shortage of work for incoming TFF leadership

Wallace Karia

What you need to know:

  • He garnered 95 out of the 128 votes cast to take over as president for the next four years. Michael Wambura will be the vice president after polling 85 votes.

Wallace Karia is the new man at the helm of Tanzanian football after succeeding Jamal Malinzi as president of the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) on Saturday. Karia won by a landslide against five other aspirants in elections held in Dodoma.

He garnered 95 out of the 128 votes cast to take over as president for the next four years. Michael Wambura will be the vice president after polling 85 votes.

All winners, including executive committee members, promised to lead Tanzania to new heights. However, we remind them to walk the talk. The new leaders face the daunting task of transforming Tanzanian football, which has for many years been in the doldrums.

With a backlog of assignments waiting to be cleared, they need to settle down fast and begin tackling the challenges that have been denying us success. Tanzania is marking time as reflected by Fifa world rankings. International success has also been eluding our clubs year in, year out.

Despite the well-documented weaknesses of Malinzi’s administration, the previous leadership did well to promote youth football, and the national under-17 team even qualified for the 2017 championship.

The new TFF leadership should build on this achievement. It should consider investing heavily in youth football because it is the surest way of enabling Tanzania to catch up with Africa’s footballing giants.

Women’s football is another neglected area. It has the potential to do us proud, but little has been done to lift its standard. Tanzania is blessed with talented young women who, however, have a limited platform to further their skills.

There is no doubt that the new leaders are visionary and we cannot wait to see women strutting their stuff in their national league.

Corruption and match-fixing cases have been on the rise, but we are optimistic that Karia and his team will deal with the rot effectively and decisively.

CURB LAKE VICTORIA MADNESS

At least 4 million people directly depend on Lake Victoria for their livelihoods, and any activity which threatens to disrupt the lake’s delicate ecosystem must be dealt with accordingly.

The urge to take shortcuts is alluring, but the consequences can be devastating and long-lasting. Businesspeople, fishermen and even practitioners of respected professions end up paying the price for seeking the shorter alternative route for personal gain.

In recent years, the authorities have warned that some fishermen are using illegal means to improve their catches on Lake Victoria. This includes the use of the so-called gill nets, which trap mature and immature fish alike.

This illegal method depletes fish stocks, which are an important source of food and income for millions of people, and poses a grave threat to high-value exports.

Although it is outlawed, the practice is continuing unabated on Lake Victoria and other freshwater bodies. This is not surprising given the sheer size of the Tanzanian portion of Lake Victoria and other factors such as corruption.

It is common knowledge that natural resources officials receive handsome sums of money from unscrupulous fishermen and traders to look the other way.

A crackdown on the masterminds is called for. Whatever the challenges, this menace must not be allowed to continue.