The Cecafa General Secretary, Nicholas Musonye is expecting the new GTV deal to radically change the face of football and stir firm competition and exposure in Africa’s oldest regional body.Musonye told Times Sport through an e-mail on Tuesday moments after sealing the $6 million deal with British based Gateway pay-per-view Television that the deal would go a long way in the development of football in the region.“For many years, Cecafa has remained the most active football zone in Africa despite lack of corporate sponsorship,” “We have had highly competitive competitions at club, youth and national levels for the past years but the coming of GTV should drastically change the face of football in our zone,” Musonye said.Before he added that the sponsorship blended well with Cecafa’s vision 2020, which entails pushing at least two teams at the 2010 Nations’ Cup finals in Angola and one to the World Cup finals in South Africa the same year.Musonye further added that the GTV money will be utilised transparently so that this revolutionary new pay TV is encouraged not only to reconsider the deal after four years but to also think of supporting other Cecafa activities.The Cecafa-GTV $ 6 million deal to sponsor the Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup which will cover four years was signed by GTV director of Business Development Ronnie Andrews and Cecafa General Secretary at the body’s Secretariat in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.The deal will see GTV acquire exclusive media and commercial rights and broadcast the tournament live across Africa with the key objective of expanding the tournament and increasing its international popularity.The deal came just under a month before the tournament to be held in Dar es salaam, Tanzania from December 8-22.This year’s Challenge Cup tournament will get $500,000 which will go towards air lifting teams, referees, accommodation, officials, the host federation and Cecafa. The money will also cover cash prizes with the winner getting $30,000, the runner-up $20,000 and the third placed team getting $10,000.There will also be additional prize money for the most promising players, top goalkeeper and leading scorer.Meanwhile, all 11-member countries forming Cecafa-Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Zanzibar, Somalia, Burundi and Djibouti. Ends
