Six Tanzanian soccer players to undergo trials in Europe

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania’s soccer intermediary Abdulrahman Afif will send six football players under20 years of age to Europe for trials in collaboration with the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF).

The programme involves three female and three male footballers who feature in the U-20 national soccer teams.

Afif – who is the managing director of Play Soccer Sports Management Ltd – said they have decided to collaborate with TFF with the aim of developing young, talented Tanzanian players.

TFF will select six players, and compile their video footages which will be used to enable teams in Europe to pick their choices soon after the Covid-19 lockdowns end.

“Our aim is to develop the youths – and this is in the pilot stage of the programme, which involves taking Tanzanian players for exposure abroad,” he explained adding that his firm – as players’ intermediaries – has been granted the requisite permission to do so by TFF.

According to Afif, Tanzania has many young players with latent talent but they have chosen to start with U-20 players due to the fact that they are at the maturity stage and can, therefore, cope well.

 “We are no doubt a legal entity after being cleared by the relevant authorities, and also registered by TFF. We want to see many Tanzanian footballers playing abroad under our management... Just let’s wait and see,” he said.

Recently, TFF approved six players’ intermediaries who have been authorized to work on behalf of players and their clubs in the country.

Before that, there were many self-styled ‘players agents’ and ‘managers’ who claimed to own players. This enabled them to get involved in various lucrative deals, including especially during players registration.