Double boost for U-17s

Uganda’s U-17 Women Team should be preparing for the second leg of their second round Fifa World Cup qualifier with Cameroon that was due this weekend in the west African country.

The first leg should have been played a fortnight ago at the StarTimes Stadium - Lugogo.

Instead members of the team, like most Ugandans, continue to be locked down far apart from each other due to the Coronavirus pandemic that wiped out a lot of sports activity in the first half of 2020 - including this World Cup that would have been played in November.

Coach Ayub Khalifan has found it hard pushing his players to train from home but he now has more ammunition in his motivation arsenal after Fifa announced February 17 to March 7, 2021 as the new dates for the World Cup in India, where Africa will have three representatives.

“The new dates are very favourable because that would be the first term of the school calendar,” Khalifan told Daily Monitor.

“So our prayer is that the current academic year does not stretch into 2021. However, we don’t want to look ahead before we can sort the qualifiers,” Khalifan, whose side qualified for the second round after ousting Tanzania 6-2 on aggregate in the first qualification round, said.

Petition thrown out
Tanzania had in the aftermath of their 5-0 loss at Lugogo petitioned Caf accusing Uganda of using over age players.

Only players born after January 2003 are eligible to take part in this competition. Tanzania targeted Shamirah Nalugya, after she ran the show in midfield on the day, star forwards Juliet Nalukenge and Fauziah Najjemba plus indefatigable defender Grace Aluka as they also play huge roles in the senior women’s team - Crested Cranes.

However, trusted sources confirmed to us that Caf have thrown out the petition as only information in players’ passports is considered by the continental body.
This, on top of Fifa maintaining the eligibility rules, allow Khalifan to maintain his squad that has lost just one of 14 international matches, ahead of their encounters with Cameroon - for which Caf is yet to schedule dates.

“We have not received any communication from Caf on the petition. Actually, even when TFF (Tanzania Football Federation) petitioned, Caf did not write to us. We only got to know on match day at Lugogo,” Fufa’s head of communication Ahmed Hussein, said. “But we are not surprised if that is the decision because TFF’s petition was based on information gathered from Facebook posts and media stories. Anyone can write a story.

Focus on Cameroon
If Caf had seen anything wrong with our data, they would have written to us asking to provide evidence to the contrary,” he added. Uganda can now fully focus on Cameroon, who have been to the U-17 World Cup and won the Africa U-17 Nations Cup twice. “Even with all their achievements, there is little information on their team on the internet yet almost all of our games were streamed live.

So Cameroon will definitely come with a lot of information about us. And while both countries want to be at the World Cup, they know more from their experience what it means to be there. We still think we can beat them,” Khalifan said.

NEW FIFA U-17 WWC DATES

February 17 - March 7 in India
SECOND ROUND QUALIFIERS
First Leg: Uganda vs. Cameroon
Second Leg: Cameroon vs. Uganda
Other Fixtures
Morocco vs. South Africa
Ghana vs. Nigeria

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