July 17 – The Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (Cecafa) Secretary General Nicholas Musonye (pictured) has said the regional association is thinking about starting its own Champions League.
The thinking has been encouraged by the success of the region’s senior club competition, the Kagame Cup which will hold its 40th edition Rwanda this August 8-24 – the draw was held earlier this week in Kigali, Rwanda.
“We are impressed with the growth of the Kagame Cup. With the type of sponsorship coming on board and the rise in competition we are now planning to start our own Champions League. But that will mostly depend with the success of this year’s edition,” said Musonye.
This year the Cup has been expanded to 14 teams with more interest from sponsors than in previous editions, particularly Rwandese sponsors.
Musonye believes the Rwanda Football Federation (Ferwafa) in conjunction with the Rwandese government are committed to hosting a successful tournament.
“The organisation and the planning of the tournament is perfect,” he said. “We were with SuperSport officials during the draw ceremony in Kigali and everybody was pleased with what we saw after evaluating the ground and the TV set-up. As far as I am concerned, the preparations for the event are in top gear.”
The draw for the three groups is as follows: Pool A – Rayon Sport (Rwanda), Yanga (Tanzania), Coffee (Ethiopia), Atlbara (South Sudan) and KMKM (Zanzibar); Pool B – Kenyan Premier League champions Gor Mahia, APR (Rwanda), Djibouti’s Telecom and Flambeau of Burundi; Pool C – defending champions Vital’O of Burundi, Allan Wanga’s El Merreikh (Sudan), Police (Rwanda) and Benadeir (Somalia).
All matches will be played at the Amahoro and Nyamirambo Stadium. Prize money of $30,000 will be paid with $20,000 going to the winners and $10,000 to the runners-up.
Expanding the competition to create a Champions League would be a big step for the Cecafa region and will require a further growth in sponsorship support for footballin the region. But the increased competitive opportunity for the clubs would very likely improve the standard and competitiveness of the national teams in CAF competitions.
The federations comprising Cecafa are Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan Tanzania, Uganda, and Zanzibar.
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