What BB must know about destination Comoros
Dotted off the East Africa coast between Tanzania and Mozambique, the Union of the Comoros—an archipelago Indian Ocean island nation—are Big Bullets’ destination for the 2015 CAF Champions League preliminary-round campaign next February.
On the weekend of February 13 2014, the island’s two-time champions Fomboni Club de Moheil host Bullets in the capital Moroni during a preliminary-round, first-leg match with the reverse fixture penciled for the end of February.
The Comoros Premier League was created in 1979.One of the Comoros established venues is 2 000-capacity Stade Said Mohamed Cheikh.
Comoros national football team, currently ranked 173 against 90 for Malawi, played their first matches in the 1979 Indian Ocean Island Games. In 2009, Bullets winger Fischer Kondowe featured for the Flames when they beat Comoros 1-0 in a Cosafa Castle Cup played in South Africa and knows “such seemingly small national teams can be handy”.
Off the pitch, BBC Monitoring describes the three islands Grande Comore, Anjouan and Moheli that envelope Comoros as “potentially a holiday paradise with picture-postcard beaches”.
However, Bullets will not travel to the East African island for holidaying as club chairperson Kondie Msungama has warned that such “unknown teams can be tricky.” Bullets must be prepared for some French language communication struggles in a country whose currency is Camorian franc.
The Comoros islands are trying to consolidate political stability after years of political upheaval that has left the country poor and on the brink of disintegration having experienced some 20 coups or attempted ones since attaining independence “from France in 1975 when President Ahmed Abdallah was toppled in a coup assisted by French mercenary Colonel Bob Denard.”
Descendants of Arab slave traders, the people of Comoros are called Comoran. The country’s main economic mainstays are vanilla, cloves and perfume essence. The Bullets will get to know more about this mystery nation with a population estimated at 800 000.
