Amavubi Stars skipper, Olivier Karekezi has rapped the local football body, Ferwafa for snubbing Jimmy Gatete from the GTV Cecafa Challenge Cup bound squad.
Amavubi Stars skipper, Olivier Karekezi has rapped the local football body, Ferwafa for snubbing Jimmy Gatete from the GTV Cecafa Challenge Cup bound squad.
The gigantic midfielder who features for Swedish side Helsingborg told Times Sport through an e-mail that Gatete shouldn’t have been left out of the squad despite his loss of form .
"I am not criticizing the squad that was named but he should have been included so as to catch up with the rest of the players.
"Dropping Gatete at this time will hinder his comeback to the perfect form that he and his country desires and this will also affect the country during the 2010 CAN and World Cup qualifiers,” Karekezi said.
Karekezi further added that Amavubi team doesn’t have quality strikers like Gatete except for the Congolese Labama Bokota who was recently adopted to become Rwandan.
"Apart from Bokota, there is no other perfect striker like Gatete.
The national team will always need a striker who is as quick in scoring goals just like him (Gatete),” Karekezi admitted.
The former APR star encouraged the local football federation to consider the Rayon Sports striker especially at this time when the team is starting to prepare face Morocco, Ethiopia and Mauritania in the 2010 CAN and World Cup qualifiers due to start in February next year.
Gatete was dropped from the Amavubi squad which is undergoing preparations for next month’s GTV Senior Challenge Cup due in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
One of the influential figures in the Amavubi team, Gatete commonly known as ‘god of goals’ by the local fans is believed to be the most prolific striker Rwandan football has ever known.
He scored crucial goals during the 2004 African Cup of Nations qualifications which saw Rwanda clinch her maiden appearance at the CAN finals held in Tunisia.
The most celebrated goal in Rwandan history is no doubt his strike against the Black Stars of Ghana at Amahoro national stadium in Kigali (March 2003) which handed the Amavubi an historical 1-0 win and handed them their ticket to Tunis the following year.
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