Rwanda’s Fixtures: Elimination stage: August 18- Rwanda v Somalia August 20-Rwanda v Tanzania August 22-Rwanda v Burundi BY BONNIE MUGABE The Under-17 National team enters residential training this afternoon ahead of the Inaugural Cecafa youth championship scheduled for august 18-27 in Bujumbura, Burundi. A squad of 23 players which was selected by Ferwafa technical arm starts training today at Amahoro stadium and the squad will be trimmed down to 18 players at the end of this week. According to the federation’s Chief Executive Officer, Jules Kalisa, the team is set to undergo a two-week training program before they depart to Bujumbura later next week. “The two-week training program is enough for the youngsters to prove their worth in Burundi and we hope the selectors went for strong and suitable players for the championship,” Kalisa said. By press time, it was yet to be confirmed whether the team would reside at Hill Top hotel or Remera hotel. Ferwafa has disclosed that Frw 30 million is what the team needs to participate in the Burundi event. Seven countries will participate in the youth football tournament that promises to showcase the depth of soccer talent the region has. Meanwhile, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has injected $ 68000(Frw. 37.400.000) into the event while Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete has donated the trophies for the tournament winners. Besides being an inaugural event, the tournament has scored another first victory by attracting the highest number of participating countries in the history of Cecafa’s inaugural tournaments. The event is seen as the regional associations’ major bold step towards the development of youth football within its member states. The teams which will take part in the tournament include hosts Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Somalia and Zanzibar. The teams have been pooled in two groups A and B, with the opening match between Burundi and Tanzania while Somalia will clash with Rwanda in pool A.
