Tava, Zava should agree on calendar

Editorial Cartoon

Volleyball lovers in Tanzania have every reason to applaud efforts by the Tanzania Amateur Volleyball Association (Tava) to revive the sport.\

The most noticeable effort is that of establishing a grassroots development programme in schools, under which the association has been organising national Level One volleyball coaching courses to primary and secondary schools teachers, who are then tasked with training youngsters in their respective schools.

The national volleyball governing body has also been ensuring that its annual sports calendar is adhered to. As a result, it has managed to organise several competitions despite many setbacks.

Tava’s latest accomplishment is the organisation of this year’s Nyerere international tournament, held in Dar es Salaam from November 13 to 16.

As it had been the case with Tava’s other recent competitions, the Dar es Salaam tournament lacked sponsorship and the situation forced the association, the Dar es Salaam Regional Volleyball Association and participating teams to foot participation costs jointly.

It was therefore hardly surprising that the event attracted few teams, considering that most of the outfits in the country could not afford participation costs.

A rather upsetting development, though, was that the Nyerere tournament (hosted by Tava) and the Zanzibar volleyball club championship (organised by the Zanzibar Amateur Volleyball Association (Zava) took place at exactly the same time.

It was thus hardly surprising that not a single Zanzibar volleyball team featured in the Nyerere tournament.

This pointed to the failure by Tava to communicate with Zava to ensure that their calendars did not clash, even as one Tava official suggested that the Nyerere international tournament was affected much by the “head-on collision” and as failure by Zanzibar teams to participate in the Dar es Salaam event was blamed on lack of funds.

There is a need for Tava to agree with Zava on the arrangement of their annual calendars so that unnecessary hitches are averted.

Zanzibar volleyball players are likely to be seriously affected by the clash of Tava and Zava calendars, when it comes to selection of players for national men and women volleyball teams.

With Tava using its competitions to select players for national teams, Zanzibar players stand to be left out as they will not be participating in Tava tournaments – which would deny Zanzibar clubs the opportunity to get much-needed experience.

It is obvious that Zanzibar teams would not skip competitions organised by Zava in favour of those hosted by Tava, given that they would incur more costs should they opt for the latter.

Fortunately, Zanzibar has been an active participant in several Tava initiatives in recent years. In fact, it is one of the very first beneficiaries of Tava’s national Level One volleyball coaching course, which saw Tava sending its officials to train Zanzibar primary and secondary schools’ physical education teachers with a view to further popularise the game.

Zanzibar has also been fielding participants in several International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) courses held in Tanzania Mainland. This is alongside taking part in Tava’s other activities, including elections.

It is therefore of fundamental importance for Tava and Zava to maintain closer links, including as concerns the drawing up of annual sports calendars, if Tanzania is to successfully promote volleyball.