ZFA remarks angers TFF

DAILY NEWS Reporter
THE Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) has disputed remarks by Zanzibar counterparts ZFA, that the former was involved in age cheating saga involving the isles Under-20 player Said Mussa Shaaban.

TFF Information Officer Florian Kaijage said on Tuesday that ZFA should come clear and admit an oversight to field ineligible player at the recently concluded regional Under-20 championships in Eritrea and not otherwise.

“It is not fair to include TFF in this matter. ZFA should hold itself accountable and amicably sort the issue on their own way. TFF is completely out of it,” said Kaijage.

He said Cecafa regulations are clear that passport will be used to verify age of every player in youth category tournaments and he wondered how ZFA could not consider that fact, instead, he said, they went ahead to base their selection just on tournament co-ordinated by TFF.

“We wonder why ZFA did not scrutinize the player’s passport before departure and take action immediately. Besides, according to regulations, associations are required to submit list of players and their respective age to Cecafa prior to the commencement of the tournament, which age did ZFA indicate for Shaaban,” Kaijage queried.

On Monday, ZFA took a dramatic twist and linked TFF, following Cecafa’s decision to punish Karume Boys in the regional Under-20 championships in Asmara.

The isles side suffered a major blow, when their 2-1 victory over Yemen in the tournament was cancelled by the Cecafa Appeals Committee over age cheating revelations. The Zanzibaris fielded Said Mussa Shaaban, a player whose passport indicated that he was born in April, 1989.

His registration form with Cecafa indicates that he was born on December 15, 1993. This is against tournament rules, which requires players to have been born on or after January 1, 1991.

ZFA Assistant Secretary General Masoud Attai said that the association’s hands are clean over the saga, because he said, they entrusted what had already been cleared by TFF. Shaaban was last year cleared by TFF to compete in age category tournament (Copa Coca Cola Under-17) as a player of Mjini Magharibi.

“Since he went through what we believed was thorough age verification by TFF, we had no reasons to doubt our counterparts and we believed that the player will now not be above18 years. We included him and fellow player Rajabu Mussa in the team basing on that fact,” said Attai.

When reached for comments yesterday, ZFA Publicity Secretary Maulid Hamad Maulid said they included the player in the list, basing on birth certificate that he submitted to the association. The certificate, Maulid said, shows that he is below 20 years.

“He also told us that he has got the passport and we had no problem with that, until it was discovered that the age indicated in the passport and that in the list of players differs,” said Maulid.