Rose Mkisi, Chaneta Secretary General, said the Muungano Cup which has attracted six teams will take place at Gymkhana Club in Zanzibar from August 26 to September 5.
She said the Muungano Cup is vital as almost all national netball team players will be with their respective clubs competing in it.
Rose, however, could not reveal when the selected players will enter the camp to prepare for the Africa Netball Cup, saying it will be probably mid-September.
“We will use the coming Muungano Cup to select players who will form the national team which will enter camp to prepare for the African Netball Cup. The good thing is that all national team players will be with their respective clubs in the showdown- it will be easy for the technical panel to monitor the players,” she said.
Teams that are expected to battle it out in the Muungano Cup are NSSF, Uhamiaji, Polisi, Tamisemi, JKT Mbweni, and Jeshi Stars. Tamisemi is the showdown's defending champion.
She said initially the Africa Netball Cup was scheduled to take place in Uganda but the International Netball Federation has announced the tournament's shift to Botswana.
Meanwhile, Rose said Chaneta will soon disclose the national netball team's head coach replacing Hafidh Tidwa whose contract with the association expired some month ago. Tindwa is also the Mbweni JKT netball team's head coach.
The announcement has come after Chaneta recently announced that it has plans to hire a permanent national netball team head coach to guide Taifa Queens in future tournaments.
The Chaneta leader said her association has earmarked many local coaches for the position.
"We feel it's now time we have a permanent national team head coach, we have many who are qualified for the post and one of them is Maimuna Murisha, she was at Utumishi," the leader stated.
"She is one of the experienced coaches and veteran umpires, we wanted to have her when we were going to South Africa for Africa Netball World Cup Qualifiers but she was on maternity leave, hopefully she will join us," the Chaneta official revealed.
She said the national team's head coach is needed at the Muungano Cup tournament given many players- who were at the National Services training- will be present with their respective clubs in the showdown.
The last permanent Taifa Queens head coach was Malawian Mary Waya- a coach credited with improving Tanzania's position in the INF ranking in which the country was sitting seventh during her stint.
Since her departure, the hiring of a permanent Taifa Queens’ coach has been a long-standing issue.
One of the local netball commentators, Michael Msemakweli, blamed the lack of a permanent coach for Taifa Queens’ struggles to improve performance on the international stage.
According to the commentator, the other factor for Taifa Queens' poor performance is inactivity in the past years and there was moreover failure by Chaneta to have a proper transitioning system.
Msemakweli- a Dar es Salaam-based sports analyst- advised Chaneta to have a proper youth netball tournament to be used to identify and nurture talents.
The commentator noted: "How can the game develop when we don't have a permanent coach, part-time coaches are only available for event-based assignments, employing a permanent coach is important as the coach stands to have sufficient time to implement his/her strategies and philosophy."
"The presence of a permanent head coach also brings stability to the team, which is key to progress, a coach must have considerable time to mould a team in the manner he/she desires," Msemakweli noted.
"Having a permanent coach is certainly a move in the right direction,” the analyst pointed out.
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