Saturday

AS Kigali vs APR FC 1pmRayon Sports vs Police FC 3:30pm

Sept. 13APR vs PoliceRayon Sports vs AS Kigali

Sept.16AS Kigali vs PoliceAPR vs Rayon Sports

Agaciro Development Fund (AgDF) football tournament title holders, Police FC will be seeking to retain it when the second edition starts on Saturday at Amahoro National Stadium.

The tournament has attracted the top four teams from last season, namely; Rayon Sports, Police FC, APR FC and AS Kigali that will play against each other on a round-robin and the team with the most points, will be the champion.

The top team will take a trophy and Rwf3million cash prize, while second team will get Rwf2million and third-placed team will walk away with Rwf1million.

Holders Police FC will open their campaign against league champions Rayon Sports at 3:30pm- the game will be preceded by the encounter between AS Kigali and reigning Peace Cup winners, APR FC, starting at 1pm.

Police head coach Innocent Seninga said: "Agaciro is an important tournament and these games are also important in terms of our preparations for the new season, so we need to be calm and ready for the challenge.”

"We are the defending champions and we need to retain our title – it is going to be very tough but we believe that we are capable of beating anyone.”

However, Rayon Sports head coach, Olivier Karekezi will be looking to win his first trophy since taking over from Djuma Masudi, who resigned at the end of last season despite leading the club to the league title.

"We are treating the tournament with respect and we shall go into this weekend’s game with an aim of winning, we will not change our mentality or approach, and we will continue to look for more wins as we prepare for the start of the new season,” Karekezi told Saturday Sport.

Meanwhile, APR FC coach Jimmy Mulisa, looking to make a good start to the season, said that, "Our target is to win all our matches and I’m confident we can do it.”

His counterpart of AS Kigali, Eric Nshimiymana noted, "We want to use this tournament to enhance our pre-season preparations ahead of what we expect to be a breakthrough season for us in terms of challenging for trophies. We are in good spirit and ready for the first game against APR.”

Each team has been given Rwf3million to prepare for the tournament and there will be awards for the best player, top scorer, promising player and best goalkeeper. The tournament rules allow each team to make six substitutes.

Police FC won the inaugural tournament staged in 2015 beating Sunrise FC 1-0 in the final.

The Agaciro tournament is staged to raise money for Agaciro Development Fund, the country’s sovereign wealth fund.

Agaciro Fund was introduced during the 2011 National Dialogue and was launched in August 2012 to build up public savings to achieve self-reliance and accelerate socio-economic development.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw