Rwanda’s Sports and Culture Minister has urged the local media to play a major role in making the on going 16th African Youth Championship a success.

Hon. Joseph Habineza made the appeal on Friday while addressing the local sports scribes on the 2009 continental championship that got underway yesterday in Kigali.

Briefing over 40 journalists in attendance, the Minister who is also heads the Steering Committee for the youth championship said, "You have the power to make this competition a success story or a failure. The ball is in your court.”

"I appeal to you to give it (African Youth Championship) the best publicity possible. I know you’ve done a commendable job from day one but I request that you continue with it and even more,” stated Habineza.

Meanwhile, the youthful Minister also used the occasion to give his views about the Rwandan team, their chances as well as what he thinks should be their target.

After monitoring closely the team’s preparations for the competition in which Rwanda is appearing for the first time, Habineza said, "They (players) have been together for a long time, which can only be good enough, and I think they’ve had very good preparations on the over all.”

"I think they only lost once in all their build-up matches locally and during the three-week training camp in Tunisia and Egypt.

"But my greatest fear is that having not lost many games during their preparations, they could end up losing when it matters most in the real competition,” acknowledged the Minister.

Obradovic Tomislav’s team spent two weeks training in Tunisia where they played and won all four build-up matches against top Tunisian topflight division clubs and another one week in Egypt where they played two games against their Egyptian counterparts, wining 2-1 and lost another 3-1.

About Rwanda’s target and their chances, he said, "The target is to go all the way to the final and win the competition.”

He however, noted, "But if we can’t win the trophy, we should at least reach the semifinal, which would see us qualify for the Fifa World Youth Championship.”

"We have a good team, which is capable of beating any team in this competition, so I think we have a great chance to do well in our backyard,” stressed Habineza.

Rwanda is playing at finals of the bi-annual championship for the first time but home support, they should fancy their chances of surviving group which also has two-time winners Ghana and another former champions Cameroon as well as Mali.

Ends