Michel courts Cecafa wrath

THE Cecafa Secretary General Nicholas Musonye has slammed Harambee Stars coach Henri Michel for his comments in which he termed Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup as useless saying his team would rather concentrate on the CHAN tournament.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Harambee Stars coach Henri Michel.

THE Cecafa Secretary General Nicholas Musonye has slammed Harambee Stars coach Henri Michel for his comments in which he termed Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup as useless saying his team would rather concentrate on the CHAN tournament.Musonye reacted saying, "I am surprised that such a coach who has had limited success in Africa is saying that Cecafa is useless. If he wants to pull out the team from the tournament he can do so.”"Kenya has been finishing last in the tournament in the last few years and will not have an impact if they chose to ignore the tournament,” he added. Michel, through his translator, termed the Cecafa Cup tournament as less important since it does not expose players to the needed competition."To me Cecafa is less important to my ambition here and I am not taking it into consideration at the moment. It is not compatible with what we are preparing for because players have to play a match in every 42 hours. It is very compact and may not work for us in terms of preparing for the top international matches we are looking at.” The tournament is set for November 24 – December 11, almost the same time that Kenya will be taking part in the CHAN tournament.Musonye says that an adjustment is being done on the dates to ensure both tournaments do not clash and the new dates will be announced soon.Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup is Africa’s oldest tournament and Kenya has won it five times. They, however, have failed to go past the group stages in the last two tournaments.