By Mark Baber
May 16 – Four Nigerian players were imprisoned in Tanzania for overstaying their visas this week. Meanwhile Tanzanian clubs have requested they be given at least three years to reduce the numbers of foreign players to three per club.
Nigerian football players, Andrew Okoro, who had travelled to Tanzania for a trial with Ashanti United, and Chiku Odia, a player with Toto Africa before they were relegated, were both sentenced to 6 months imprisonment or a fine of 100,000 shillings (£36) for illegal stay in the country by Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s court near the capital Dar es Salaam.
Chikereke Messaiah and Onyekwu Daniel were sentenced to 6 month imprisonment or a fine of 50,000 shillings (£18).
In each case the defendant was unable to pay the fine and opted for prison.
Meanwhile Tanzanian clubs have requested of the Tanzanian Football Federation that they be allowed to continue to play five foreign players during the coming season and that the implementation of a proposed three-foreign-player rule be delayed.
TFF Media Officer, Boniface Wambura told journalists: “The clubs agreed that they should be given at least another three seasons from 2014/15 to register five foreign players while they try to reorganise their local talent search procedures.”
According to Wambura, the federation’s Executive Committee will issue the final judgment on the matter in its coming meeting. The spokesman was clearly frustrated at the failure of the Simba and Yanga clubs, who both want the limit raised to seven, to attend a meeting to discuss the issue saying: “They did not even bother to send any excuse in regard to their absence in the meeting.”
Foreign players have dominated the scoring charts in the Tanzanian league and a limit on the number of foreign players was proposed to encourage local talent. The inability of the foreign players to pay their fines is partly a function of wages in Tanzania being far lower than in Europe.
The case of Okoro indicates the level of concern these cases should generate within FIFA as he claimed his manager took his passport and $500 before he was flown over.
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