Sudan to host two CECAFA championships

Sudan will host two CECAFA championships in July and August in a bid to solidify their rather shaky peace treaty between the North and the South, a top official said on Monday.

The club championships, originally scheduled for Uganda, will be held in Khartoum and Port Sudan between June 30 and July 12 and the youth under-17 contest in Juba a month later.

It will be the first major sporting event to be staged in the southern part of the country since the signing of the treaty in January 2005 which brought an end to their 20-year old civil war.

“The government of Sudan is committed to the promotion and willing to invest heavily in sports throughout the whole country,” CECAFA general secretary Nicholas Musonye told AFP.

“They have accepted to finance the staging of the two events to the tune of one million dollars (78 million shillings). It is a big boost for the sport.”

“We have, in turn increased the prize money from 60,000 dollars to 100,000 dollars (7.8 million shillings) of which the winners will pocket 50,000 dollars (4 million shillings,” said Musonye.

Sudan is enjoying a footballing reconnaissance with their two top club sides, Al Hilal and Al-Merreikh, reaching the group stages of the African Champions League and the national team in the hunt to qualify for the 2010 World Cup.