SIMBA have been ordered by the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF), to hand back the Community Shield they won on Wednesday, for it to be corrected.
Furthermore, several TFF employees are on the cage, following an embarrassing scenario in which a Community Shield awarded to Simba was miss-spelt. Instead of ‘Shield’, the calligrapher wrote ‘Community ‘Sheild’, which raised uproar among sports fans, with many pointing fingers at the federation officials for a blunder.
TFF Media and Communication Officer, Alfred Lucas, apologised for the mess, saying it will be corrected and will not happen again. He said already the TFF Acting General Secretary, Wilfred Kidao, has taken disciplinary measures against the federation employees, who were in charge of handling the matter.
“It is an embarrassing scenario and the TFF as well as Tanzanians, especially football lovers were not pleased with a misspelled word which appeared on the Shield,” he said. However, Lucas could not reveal the names of employees who have been taken to task.
He said the federation has requested Simba officials to hand back the Shield for necessary corrections. Meanwhile, Simba head coach Joseph Omog said his team can achieve even more success after they won the Community Shield on Wednesday.
The Msimbazi Reds drew first blood of the season, beating their traditional rivals Young Africans 5-4 on penalties to lift the Community Shield at the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam.
The match had to be decided on penalties after it ended in a barren draw at the 90 regulation minutes and the Cameroon tactician is pessimistic on the team’s striking force, saying massive work need to be done to make it even clinical and ruthless in front of the goal.
“We were not sharp and clinical enough at the final third and we have a job to do to make the striking force much more clinical,” he said, while also showering Yanga’s midfielder, Papy Kabamba Tshitshimbi with lavish praise for a fantastic display.
“He was really a heartbeat of Yanga in the game and his display in the middle of the pack caught us with a bit of surprise,” he said. Simba had to withdraw industrious midfielder, Muzamiru Yassin late into the game and replaced him with Mohamed Ibrahim, who offered much competition to Tshitshimbi in the midfield.
Rwandese midfielder, Haruna Niyonzima, who crossed from Yanga to Simba this season, said the match was tense and pressure on him was mammoth. “I had six distinctive years at Yanga ... they are my friends and almost relatives.
It was always going to be difficult for me to face them but I thank God I kept my nerves and played my game well. “I also thank Simba fans for support and respect they showed me and I promise to keep working hard and deliver for the team and make them (fans) happy,’ he said.
His teammate, Emmanuel Okwi, described the Wednesday’s game as among the most difficult derby involving Simba and Yanga he has ever played. “It was a bit difficult for me and my teammates, we expected that Yanga will be a little bit down but they approached the game differently and showed fighting spirit,” he said.
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