EDITORIAL: Clubs must sign the right foreign players

The registration window for the Tanzania Mainland Premier League is expected to close on July 26. Clubs have ample time to build their teams up ahead of the next season.

It is a critical moment for club leaders who are expected to work day and night in their search for best affordable players to strengthen their squads. The Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) has allowed all premier league sides to recruit a maximum of seven foreign players to beef up local talent.

However, it is always a challenge for some clubs that fail to make the right choices of foreign players. They sign players who end up not giving them value for their money.

We have witnessed many clubs spending a lot of money in recruiting foreign players, but with nothing much to show for it on the pitch. This is tantamount to blowing a golden chance.

One of the mistakes clubs often make is rushing to sign clubs without conducting thorough background checks of their targetted foreign players. They fall into the temptation of a player’s glorious past, and fail to go through thorough trials.

A good starting point for clubs is referring to the TFF guidelines. Among them, is the need for clubs to recruit young players who feature in the national teams of their countries. If they prefer more mature players, they also must be featuring in the national senior team.

The onus is on club leaderships to implement these guidelines because they make sense. Any move without consideration of these guidelines is a plunge into the dark. In other words, it’s gambling.

Unfortunately, when clubs fail to make the right choices the country’s chances of featuring a club in international competitions dwindles. So, let’s do this right. For our clubs and for the sake of the greater goal of having Tanzanian clubs play big at the international level.

HELP SEAWEED GROWERS

Zanzibar is the world’s third-largest producer of seaweed after the Philippines and Indonesia.

As domestic demand for seaweed in Tanzania is low, the product is exported - mainly to Denmark, US, China, France and Belgium.

Seaweed is among the most popular products for export markets due to its mineral contents of iodine, calcium and assorted vitamins. That being the case, the crop is a major foreign exchange earner for Zanzibar.

The Isles produce an average 15,000 tonnes of seaweed annually by about 24,000 farmers.

Through the Commission for Science and Technology guidance, farmers have established clusters that have added value and have come up with different types of seaweed based products, including soap, jam, lotion, massage oil - and even snacks.

Unido also provided equipment worth $80,000 to the farmers with which to establish small-scale industries to add value to seaweed. The Zanzibar government is also in a process of establishing a semi-refined carrageenan plant to produce gelatin.

However, challenges still exist - including difficulties in obtaining suitable packaging materials that would attract buyers at the domestic and export markets.

We call on the relevant authorities to provide tax relief to prospective investors in the production of packaging materials.