The Cecafa organizing Committee has confirmed that the President of Zanzibar, Dr. Ali Mohamed Shein will be the chief guest as Uganda and Rwanda clash in the finals of this year’s Cecafa Tusker Challenge Cup at the National stadium here in Dar es salaam City this Saturday.
Somali Referee Wish Yabarow who officiated last year’s finals has again been handed another chance to handle this highly anticipated clash. He will be assisted by Egueh Hassan from Djibouti and Ida Mohamed from Sudan. Tanzania’s Israel Mujuni is the standby referee while Tariq Atta from Sudan is the designated Match Commissioner. Uganda will miss the services of Godfrey Walusimbi who picked up a second yellow card against Tanzania last Thursday.
Cecafa General Secretary Nicholas Musonye told a pre-match meeting last evening that the Zanzibari President had accepted the committee’s invitation to preside over the finals that will be showed live on Super Sport, Channel 9. The winners walk away with a cash prize of U$ 30.000 while U$ 20.000 and U$10.000 goes towards the first and second runner’s ups respectively.
Rwanda looks to maintaining their unbeaten record in this tournament and their second title as the Uganda Cranes focuses on winning their 12th Cecafa title. Rwanda last won this challenge cup in 1999 when their side ‘B’ edged Kenya 3-1 in the finals in Kigali. They have however lost all their finals on away grounds while Uganda has won most of her titles away from home.
In 2003, Uganda registered a humiliating 3-0 win against Rwanda in Khartoum City . In 2007, Rwanda still lost the title to Sudan on spot kicks here in Dar es salaam after a 2-all draw in the normal and extra time. The Cranes again flew over Rwanda’s Amavubi in 2009 when they met in the finals away in Nairobi. Uganda won 2-0. Team Captain Andy Mwesigwa has assured Ugandans that he would return to Kampala with a title on Monday.
Hosts Tanzania will play Sudan in the classification game at 1:00pm before the final kick off at 3:30pm.
