EDITORIAL: TFF CANNOT ESCAPE BLAME FOR FOOTBALL DERBY FIASCO
The controversial rescheduling and subsequent postponement of Saturday’s Vodacom Premier League match between bitter rivals Simba Sports Club and Young Africans speaks volumes about the state of football administration in Tanzania.
A few hours before the match was initially scheduled to start at 5pm at Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam, the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) pushed the kickoff time back to 7pm, citing a directive from the Ministry of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports for which no reason was given. This was contrary to the relevant Premier League regulation, which requires TFF to communicate any change in kickoff times at least 24 hours in advance.
Not surprisingly, the match did not take place after Yanga boycotted the fixture, having earlier arrived at the stadium for the 5pm kickoff. TFF made an already bad situation worse by postponing the match to an unannounced date, prompting a mixture of consternation, confusion, anger and utter disbelief.
Apart from its flagrant violation of a section of regulations governing Tanzania Mainland’s top-flight league, of which it is the custodian, it seems TFF is still not aware of the sensitivities, intrigue and politics surrounding matches between Simba and Yanga, which are among the biggest derbies in African football.
TFF has on a number of occasions pushed back kickoff times a few hours before matches were due to start this season without incident, but the federation needs to understand that it is a whole new ball game when it comes to fixtures pitting Tanzania’s biggest football clubs against each other. There is simply too much at stake in the so-called Kariakoo derby.
Saturday’s events projected for the umpteenth time an image of a federation groping in the dark, neither totally in control nor fully aware of the consequences of routinely acting in a way that courts controversy.
One can bet their last cent that it is highly unlikely that the match will take place after what happened on Saturday, and the blame will lie squarely with TFF. There can be no buck-passing.
EAC COST-CUTTING GOOD, BUT…
We are told a consultant hired by the East African Community (EAC) proposed that the regional integration bloc undertakes cost-cutting to improve efficiency. Among the proposals are reducing the number of East African Legislative Assembly members to five from each partner state – down from the current nine – and disbanding some EAC institutions, including the Zanzibar-based EA Kiswahili Commission.
Operational since 2015, the Commission provides advice to the EAC partner states on Swahili research, teaching, learning and development as the lingua franca of the partner states: a language of wider communication in Africa and beyond. Apparently, EAC resorted to a consultant when it was itself in dire straits in terms of financing and appropriate staffing. But, did it really have to hire a private consultant – no doubt doing so at great cost – to tell it in so many words that it had to undertake cost-cutting measures to make strides forward?
We agree with prudent and functional cost-cutting: in this case a matter that is within the ambit and prerogative of the EAC Ministerial Council and not private consultants or individual countries. Indeed, we would prefer to see such measures being taken by regional integration bodies like the EAC, Sadec, Comesa, IGAD, the AfCFTA, etc, when the measures impact several countries.
