The South Sudan Football Association President Francis Amin says the association will partially resume its activities from tomorrow after more than six months of suspension due to the coronavirus pandemic.
South Sudan national team is expected to play a friendly match with Cameroon and Uganda on the 10th of October.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj today, Thursday, Francis Amin said they plan to start with training for the national team in anticipation of upcoming matches after getting a go-ahead from the national COVID-19 taskforce.
“We have met with the coronavirus committee taskforce so that we can resume activities and we have agreed to start activities partially. We are going to start with the national team since we have friendly matches with Cameroon and Uganda in October and November. We will start tomorrow by carrying out tests for the group in the camp so that we can start the training,” he said.
Separately Amin said the association for the first time will start registering female football players as from December.
“We are planning to start registering all local teams from December including women football teams for the first time to participate in the local tournament which is expected to start early January 2021,” he announced.
The sports official further said the association has received about a million dollars from the international football governing body FIFA to cater for the national team’s logistics in the coming friendly matches.
Amin hinted that the game between South Sudan and Uganda may be played in neighboring Sudan since the South Sudan stadium is still under renovation.
He added, “The issues of playgrounds remain the big challenge to us, financial support is a big issue, tracing of players during this pandemic, and most of the players now have resorted to other bad and illegal activities during this time.”
Amin appealed to well-wishers, government and NGO’s to financially support the association and motivate the players.