Fof, City Tyres to champion soccer development in Moroto district

Kampala.

After two months of regional action, the finals of this year’s Chenga Challenge Under-14 tournament climax this weekend.
Unlike the previous 12 editions however, organisers Friends of Football (Fof) and City Tyres opted to host the competition in Moroto.

“Taking the Chenga Challenge to the area is a way of opening Moroto to the rest of the world as they have for so many years lived a closed way of life; it doesn’t have to be perfect all we are offering at the moment is a start,” noted William Nkemba, one of the Fof founders and former Cranes international.

The region has for decades depended on food aid for survival. Sportingly, Moroto is also lagging behind, something which led organisers Friends of Football (Fof) and sponsors City Tyres to move this year’s finals tournament to the Karamoja region.

“And of course we shall try to show that football can open so many avenues in society,” Nkemba, the former SC Villa defender, added.
Fof administrative secretary Davis Katabira who visited the area during the regional qualifiers last month listed a number of challenges that he thinks are detrimental to the game’s development.

“In Moroto playing without boots is the rule rather than the exception,” Katabira explained at the launch of the finals tournament held at the City Tyres offices over the weekend.

Like with other tournaments in association football, however, playing barefoot will not be permitted at the two-day tournament that starts tomorrow. “We are requesting for support to have these boys get football boots ahead of the finals,” he added. Katabira, however, believes the region which recently had Moroto FC promoted to the second tier Big League is not far behind in terms of ability.

“The quality is not too bad when compared to other regions although the game is still based on a casual basis,” he adds.
Katabira also adds that the region lacks qualified coaches that are critical in player development.

“The few primary schools games teachers who act as coaches lack the basic knowledge of the game,” he further explains.
Katabira also cited the state of the pitches in the area as a concern ahead of the two-day finals competition.

“There are few pitches in the area and the ones available like the Police and Prisons grounds need an urgent facelift,” noted Katabira, who hopes to have the surface improved ahead of Friday’s group stage games.

Up to 21000 children took part in the tournament that has been in existence since 1997.

According to Fof technical director Eddie Butindo, 11 teams are taking part in this year’s finals that will see teams divided in four groups of three teams each with the fifth consisting of two teams.

Unlike previous editions, the best 23 players were selected from each region to feature in the finals.

“The coaches that were previously selecting players would favour those from their respective teams which is against the tournament’s objective of promoting the talent,” opined Butindo. Among the other challenges the organisers have faced include failure by teams to avail birth, baptism, confirmation certificates and previous years vaccination certificates and passports to verify the true ages of players.

“We shall be stricter in the following edition but for now we have resorted to rudimentary methods,” added Katabira. The tournament which is into its 13 edition has produced a number of Cranes stars over the years including Dennis Onyango, and Salim Jamal, Mike Mutyaba, Edward Ssali and Tony Odur among others.

The latest generation includes the likes of Gift Ali, Keziron Kizito and Farouk Miya among others. The latter scored for Cranes in Sunday’s 1-0 win over Comoros in result that helped the national team return to Afcon for the first time since 1978.

“We believe there is talent across the whole country and who knows we might also find the next Miya,’’ concluded Nkemba.
Fof has been in existence since 1997 when they established the first football academy in the country that culminated into the formation of a national under-12 team that won the Eritrea Independence Cup.

2016 chenga groups
Group A
North Eastern
Western
East Buganda
Group B
Northern
Elgon
Southern
Group C
West Nile
Rwenzori
South Buganda
Group D
Central
Nile