Infantino: Dar soccer on track

WORLD football-ruling body, FIFA President, Gianni Infantino has said Tanzania has all the ingredients of becoming Africa superpower in football.

Speaking to sports editors during a round table meeting shortly after FIFA Executive Football Summit (EFS) at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre (JICC) in Dar es Salaam on Thursday, Infantino said there was a lot of passion and commitment to develop the game in Tanzania.

“I’ve seen a passion of Prime Minister (Kassim Majaliwa) and the engagement of the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) leaders in developing football… there are all ingredients for this country to be a powerhouse in Africa,” he said.

He said part of the reason why FIFA picked Tanzania as a host of the summit was because the body wanted to encourage the new TFF leadership to promote the agenda of good governance. “I know they (TFF) leaders took power in difficult time, the same way we at FIFA came to power. Our agenda is always to promote good governance and what I’ve seen from the government of Tanzania in its initiative to fighting corruption made me very happy.

I’ve also seen the efforts taken by TFF in fighting corruption and we will be happy to support them,” he noted. He spoke passionately about Tanzania, saying he had some little ideas about the country before coming but he came to know that it is a nation of extremely friendly people. “Everyone is smiling, you are the people who are extremely friendly… I really felt at home immediately after arriving here.

This translates that Tanzania is a really friendly football nation,” he said. During the summit, delegates discussed the FIFA Forward programme, the future of youth and women’s competitions and opportunities for improving the transfer system and international match calendar. And, on these agendas Infantino said they have agreed to introduce women league.

“We got projects to develop women and youth football and one of the things we discussed in the summit today (Thursday), is that we are going to launch new competition. We are going to introduce women league and we will ask all countries to compete. Our objective is to increase the number of teams participating in women football because it is only through playing, we can improve our football,” he said.

In regard to how much FIFA brings to Tanzania, Infantino said; “Today, FIFA is financing each association in the world with 1.2million US dollars for operation costs and to support projects that must be approved and strictly audited by FIFA. “I have a good feeling that Tanzania is doing things in a right way in regard to sticking to financial discipline and use funds that come from FIFA appropriately,” he said.

In regard to the legacy the summit left in Tanzania, Infantino said that TFF have learnt a lot from the rest of the delegates. He said there were lots of inputs TFF could use for development of youth and women football. “I also told the government to support football and got positive assurance from Prime Minister that there would be more investments in schools,” he said.

The summit was chaired by president Infantino and brought together presidents and general secretaries of 21 FIFA member associations on the same table. Also, key figures that attended the summit include FIFA Vice-President David Gill, FIFA General Secretary Fatma Diouf Samoura and CAF President Ahmad Ahmad.

Tanzania had been selected as a Member Association to host one of the 12 FIFA EFS meetings, which begun last November and will stretch up to March this year, as part of President Infantino’s vision of ‘bringing FIFA back to football and football back to FIFA