Simba faces CAF deadline today

Simba Sports Club

SIMBA is in danger of missing today’s deadline for submitting its squad list to the
Confederation of African Football (CAF) for next year’s Champions League. According to a circular to member associations, CAF insisted that clubs have to submit the lists by November 30.

“May we remind you that engagements in CAF inter-clubs competitions including the name of your engaged club in the 12th Edition of CAF Champions League, and the 5th Confederation Cup, must reach the General Secretariat of CAF before November 30, 2007 the postal stamp of Cairo post office will bear witness as to the date of receipt and will be decisive,” the circular said.

The circular added: “In case of emergency, engagements can be sent by fax before November 30, 2007, to be followed by the necessary documents, which must reach CAF Secretariat before December 15, 2007.”

Simba have said they would rather delay handing in their list than submitting an incomplete squad. “We are ready to pay whatever fine than rushing for no good reason. We will use the few remaining hours to get players we think would help our team perform better,” said the chairman of the Players’ Registration Committee, Evans Aveva.

However, Aveva said the committee would submit the list in time should they finalise the registration process. “We are working round the clock to settle this matter and clear deficiencies that TFF had detected in our earlier list.

The FA should not condemn us as irresponsible because they know exactly the situation we went through in the past few weeks.” “They are forgetting that Simba was rocked in a leadership crisis for at least three weeks making it difficult for the committee to conduct the registration exercise,” he said.

The TFF rejected earlier list presented by the club after detecting transfer irregularities involving some players. He said Yanga who would represent the country in the Confederations Cup have been cleared and the names have already been forwarded to CAF to process their licences.

Meanwhile, Aveva said they have already secured the International Transfer Certificates (ITCs) for their newly recruited players from abroad. Simba have been chasing the ITCs for striker Athumani Machupa who has rejoined the club from Atraco FC of Rwanda as well as that of marksman Emmanuel Gabriel from Oman.

Aveva also said that they were expecting to meet with Yanga officials yesterday evening to sort out the transfer wrangles involving Kenyan defensive midfielder Edwin Mukenya. Mukenya has crossed from Yanga and signed to play for Simba next season but Yanga have since demanded that transfer procedures were not followed.

The Jangwani Street club is also demanding some 20m/- to release the player. In another development, Simba have swapped players with Ashanti United, Mtibwa Sugar and Manyema FC. Aveva said Simba has released Burundian defender Said Kokoo to join Mtibwa Sugar of Morogoro and secured the signature of Juma Nyoso from Mtibwa.

He said Bakari Kigodeko and Said Morad have been traded to Ashanti United and Manyema with Ramadhan Chombo ‘Redondo’ and Deogratius Bonaventura respectively. He said former skipper Selemani Matola has been sold to Moro United.