The Cecafa secretariat has confirmed that participating teams in this year’s senior Challenge Cup shall arrive in the Tanzania on December 5-6 ahead of the kick-off on December 8.

The Cecafa secretary General, Nicholas Musonye told Times Sport that eleven teams have been duly informed of the arrival dates ahead of the kicks off on December 8 in Dar es Salaam.

"All countries have been informed and we hope they will respond positively.

Arriving earlier will help participating teams to acclimatize with the weather of Dar es Salaam before playing their fixtures,” Musonye said.

Musonye further added that the regional body was of a view that all participating teams would arrive a week before but organizers found not necessary and trimmed one week to three days.

Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro Stars and Harambee Stars of Kenya are expected to lock horns in the championship’s opener, a flashback to the 1981 tourney.

Dar es Salaam will host groups A and B while Arusha accommodates teams in group C.

Hosts Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya and Somalia are in group A.
Rwanda, Uganda, Eritrea and Djibouti will form group B while Sudan, Ethiopia and Zanzibar group up as C, he said.

On the local scene, Ferwafa has confirmed that the national team for Cecafa will be named next week.

The Amavubi team manager, Jean Pierre Bavuzingago said yesterday that the newly appointed national coach Josip Kuze will name the squad after watching the first two games of the national football league which kicks off tomorrow and over the weekend respectively.

"He was supposed to name the squad on Wednesday but he has preferred to use the league games to watch other players before naming his final squad next Monday,” Bavuzingago said.

He further added that the Amavubi team will head straight to residential camp to prepare for the regional tournament due next month.

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