Cecafa receive $450 000 from EABL

By Fred Maingi in Nairobi
THE 2012 Cecafa Challenge Cup in Kampala will kick off on November 24
and the final is set for December 8 at the Nelson Mandela Stadium in
Namboole.
Sponsors East African Breweries Limited [EABL], through their flagship
brand, Tusker Lager, on Tuesday morning announced the countdown to the
championship and a $450,000  grant to the event.
    At a breakfast function at the Serena Hotel in Kampala, Lemmy
Mutahi the EABL (Uganda) Marketing Director, handed the cheque to
Nicholas Musonye, the Cecafa secretary general.
    Mutahi said the staging of this year’s Challenge Cup for the
Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations nations had a
special significance.
EABL are renowned sponsors of regional football who recently took
sponsorship of the Kenyan national men's football team and the Kenyan
Premier League. Through its subsidiary, Uganda Breweries, they also
sponsor the Uganda Soccer League [USL].
Mutahi said EABL was supporting the event, so that hopefully, Cecafa
would prepare a team that will make it to the 2014 Fifa World Cup in
Brazil.
He said EABL were happy to stage the event in Uganda -- which for the
past two years was held in Tanzania -- and that was why they had
increased the cash grant by 5%.
Musonye said that from the sponsorship, Cecafa would be able to fly
teams into and from Uganda and comfortably accommodate them.
At the launch, the Fufa [Federation of Uganda Football Association]
local organising committee were present. Later, Musonye held talks
with the Uganda State Minister for Sports, Charles Bakabulindi in his
office.
   The minister pledged to support Cecafa and Fufa to organise a
successful event.
The total prize money is $60,000,and the winning team will earn
Sh2.5m, the runners-up [Sh1.7m] and the bronze medalist Sh850,000.
All matches with be broadcast “live” on SuperSport television.
The total number of Cecafa countries increased recently when newly
independent South Sudan were admitted. The country took part in a
Cecafa competition for the first time at the Cecafa Kagame Club Cup in
Tanzania last month.
Cecafa member nations are: Burundi,.Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya
 Rwanda, Somali, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania [Mainland], Uganda,
Zanzibar [Tanzania]