Tanzania this week made history by achieving a good start to the campaign to reach the African Cup Of Nations final in 2008 in Accra, Ghana by scoring 2-1 against Burkina Faso in the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam. Burkina Faso is a strong side with overseas players making the win even more significant.

 

As we all remember the last time Tanzania reached the finals of the African cup of Nations was 1982 in Lagos, Nigeria and the team was coached by Joel Bendera, now Deputy Minister of Sports and M.P for Korogwe. For the last ten years there has not much to be proud of. Since the draw 0-0 with DR Congo in the National Stadium in July 1997, Taifa stars have lost ten competitive games. That is why this result means alot for all Tanzanians and, who knows, may be this is going to be new era for the country as far as sports is concerned.

 

The Taifa stars head coach, Marcio Maximo, said after the match that he was expecting to win the match and all Tanzanians were in a positive mood and fully behind the team but he also hinted that there is still a lot of work to do in order to have strong players who can play as a team in the long term.

 

While credit goes to the players and the officials who worked hard to achieve this win, the support from the President, government officials and members of opposition parties was vital to boost morale.

 

In particular, one can note the strong involvement of President Jakaya Kikwete in the game but also in the lead up. He was personally involved in the recruitment of the Brazilian coach to the Tanzania side by giving his opinion to the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) on selection of the national coach. He also visited the team camp to speak to players and officials of the national team.

 

The President has a strong interest in sports. Such support is very important to get from our leaders at all levels of sports activity and should be built on. For many years in Tanzania our leaders spoke about sports development but it was more theoretical than tangible and this has led to sports competitions like UMITASHUMTA and UMISETA to be taken out of the national sports calendar with the result that there has been a lack of competition at local level and a lack of emerging sports people.

 

There are different ways that we, as a nation, can help our President and the nation at large to improve sports performance. For instance, we can urge local government to start sports programmes at local community, district, region and national levels. The presence of these will make it easier for national coaches to identify talents and strengthen the national sports teams. This will help the national sports associations to achieve their goals.

 

It is high time that other government leaders at all levels should follow the President’s example and get involved in supporting and promoting sports in their areas as it is proved that it can make a big difference to performance.

 

Ways need to be found to bring new ideas into sports development for instance such as looking at new funding sources to support sports at local and national level, bigger investment in sports promotion, the holding of national sports days, achieving a balance in schools between sport and other subjects. Some people are disillusioned at present with sport given the bad performance of the clubs and the national teams in international competitions. Significant input is needed to turn this around and keep people motivated.

 

It will be difficult for the President to be involved in directly supporting all sports associations. The Ministry of Sport therefore needs to identify benchmarks for success so that associations can be open to receiving support after they reach a certain level, whether through support for fundraising, or meeting players and/or participating in matches.

 

Leaders of other sports associations, such as netball, volleyball, handball, basketball, table tennis etc, should take advantage of the achievement of Taifa stars to motivate their players in raising standards and preparing themselves for future competitions, such as Zone 5 qualifications, All African Games, Olympics, Commonwealth games etc.

 

The win this week for the Taifa stars hopefully can act as a motivation to further improve the game and produce players to international standard so that they can play in other countries clubs, leagues. By doing this it would raise the standard of the national team and create awareness of Tanzania in the international sports arena and ultimately contribute to Tanzania’s economy.

 

We all remember the late Mwalimu Nyerere saying to the nation: “It can be done, play your part!”

Israel Saria is the author of www.tanzaniasports.com, a sports website focused on sports development in Tanzania.