Hersi Said reveals how he turned around Yanga's fortunes

Under his watch, Young Africans SC, alias Yanga, have won back-to-back NBC Premier League titles, and one Azam Sports Federation Cup (ASFC) top honour.

The Jangwani Street-based club has, further, clinched back-to-back Community Shields and qualified for the 2022/23 CAF Confederation Cup semi-finals.

In an interview with prominent South African media personnel Robert Marawa, Said explained how he has done it, detailing how he was on the front seat of the squad rebuilding.

The Yanga boss revealed: I have been with the team for three years as a leader but it is just one of being the president. Those two years that I am talking about, Yanga was very down.

Look at the squad now, I can tell you now that from the time I came in as the Chairman of the transformation path, we don't have a player that was part of the previous regime, Said added.

He said: I have wiped out everything. This is a new squad that I have built from scratch. Talking about goalkeepers that we have, I signed all of them, the central defenders, the entire backline is under my registration, the midfielders, the strikers, I built this team from scratch.

So the first two years I was building this team, then in the third year, we are talking of last season, we became champions because of the signing of good players. This season again as the president we are champions because of that.

Said noted: It is not something that came from nowhere, in my first season we became number two in the league. We signed like seven players and we became number two, in my second season we added 10 more players and then we became champions, that was last season.

This season again, I have signed five foreign players and two locals, so a total of seven to come up with a total of 28 players.

You are talking about the entire squad that was signed under my leadership. It was easy for me to convince these players because I was doing it myself, Said noted.

He added that the club is still supported by GSM Group Tanzania, owned by Ghalib Said Mohamed, but it is well on its way to increasing brand value to increase its equity when it comes to the final process of its valuation in the transformation process.

Said pointed out: Ghalib still supports Yanga financially but supporters and fans are paying membership fees. We are now sitting at 70,000 registered members who paid their membership fees. This is the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa.