The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sports and Culture, Edward Kalisa, has challenged the Amavubi Stars to win this year’s Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup tournament which gets underway in Kenya later this month.

Speaking to local media recently, Kalisa noted that winning the regional competition, which is the oldest football completion in Africa, would be a great achievement for Eric Nshimiyimana and his team.

Rwanda that has won the tournament just once back in 1999 was drawn in Group C, a long with Sudan, Eritrea and defending champions Uganda for this year’s event.

The draws were held in Kenya on Friday. Group A has hosts Kenya, Ethiopia, Zanzibar and South Sudan, while Group B consists of Tanzania, Zambia, Burundi and Somalia. 

The opening match of the tournament will be between Kenya and Ethiopia on November 27.

"It is a long time since the team won this trophy and this could a perfect opportunity to do it especially considering that we have a real good young team with potential to end that long drought,” Kalisa said.

He added, "We don’t want to put too much pressure on the players but at the same time we cannot lower our expectation too low, this current team has the potential to win the tournament.”

The team is expected to leave for Nairobi on today.