CECAFA Secretary General Nicholas Musonye and Cooordinator Herbert Mwachiro during a press conference last week
The Council for East and Central African Football Associations (CECAFA) and Tanzanian Pay TV Company, Azam TV have sealed a three-year sponsorship deal to broadcast the regional Challenge Cup and Kagame Cup tournaments.
The CECAFA General Secretary Nicholas Musonye confirmed to KT Sports on Monday in an exclusive interview.
“We have secured Azam TV as our broadcasting partner. We have signed a three-year sponsorship deal which will end in 2019. They will be broadcasting all Challenge Cup tournaments (men and women) and the annual Kagame Cup tournament,”
“In bid to promote the youth football in the region, Azam TV will also broadcast the regional U-17 tournament and we feel this is good for our region,”
“We are committed to hosting a fruitful tournament which will also help our teams that have qualified for the 2018 Total Africa Nations Championship to prepare better,” added Musonye without going into monetary details of the sponsorship package.
Regional soccer fans will enjoy the upcoming Challenge Cup on their television sets as Pay TV Azam will beam live all the 2017 edition of Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup set to kick-off on December 3 in Kenya.
The Cecafa Challenge Cup 2017 tournament will feature 10 teams, eight from the Cecafa region and two guest teams, Libya and Zimbabwe and will run until December 17, 2017.
The teams have been pooled into two groups, with the winners and runners-up in each group gaining qualification to the semifinal.
Bukhungu Stadium in Kakamega, Moi Stadium in Kisumu and Afraha Stadium in Nakuru have been set aside as match venues with the Mumias Sports Complex, Kenyatta Stadium in Machakos and MISC Kasarani designated as alternative venues in cases of bad weather.
Host Nation Kenya are pooled in Group A alongside Rwanda, Libya, Tanzania, and Zanzibar.
Defending Champions Uganda will be up against Zimbabwe, Burundi, Ethiopia and South Sudan in Group B.
Kenya will confront Rwanda at the Moi Stadium in Kisumu on December 3, on the opening day of this year’s Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (Cecafa) Senior Challenge Cup.
The competition’s two-time winners Sudan abruptly withdrew from taking part in the tournament, whilst despite the political uncertainty back home, the Zimbabwe national team have confirmed their attendance.
Azam Tv who are broadcasting Rwandan league is popular in Tanzania and they own the giant Azam Football Club with a magnificent Chamazi Stadium.
Azam media owned by Zanzibari born Tanzanian business mogul Said Salim Bakhresa is the broadcast right holder for Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda top tier leagues with its presence also in Kenya, Malawi and Burundi.
Azam Media has nine sports channels showing the Spanish La liga, Vodacom league and Uganda league.They also own a football club in Malawi called Azam Tigers.
Azam TV sports has Azam one,Azam two, Azam Sports HD, Fox Sports, Fox sports 2, MUTV, RMTV, MCS sports Chanel.
Azam TV replaced supersport in Uganda after securing top flight rights in a 1.9 Million Pounds deal before securing the Rwanda top league worth 2.35 dollars for a period of five years.
In the same year 2015, Azam Media secured the Kenyan second tier league rights from MP & Silva but the deal went sour.
