Ghalib Said Mohamed to build CAF level stadium in Tanzania

Tanzania Premier League champions Young Africans have selected GSM Group president Ghalib Said Mohamed as the investor and contractor for a new club stadium, a project the team says will be built to meet the Confederation of African Football’s modern venue standards.

Club president Hersi Ally Said told reporters the team has started formal steps to stop relying on Benjamin Mkapa Stadium for home matches, especially on the continental stage. Young Africans, known widely as Yanga, have shared the national stadium in Dar es Salaam for years while pushing for a home ground that can carry the club’s brand and generate steady revenue outside matchdays.

Said said the winning bidder is GSM Company under Mohamed, and that the club has already held meetings to spell out what it wants. The stadium, he said, is meant to be more than a football arena, with space designed for events, entertainment and community use.

Yanga’s target is ambitious. CAF grades stadiums across several levels, and Said said the club wants a venue that sits between level three and level four, a standard that could host matches deep into the CAF Champions League knockout rounds. He said the club expects to finalize key requirements within a week and begin another round of sessions that would lead to contract signing and immediate mobilization.

Mohamed is best known in Tanzania as the head of a diversified business group that spans logistics, trading, real estate, manufacturing, retail and financial services. GSM Group profiles describe him as coming up through a family enterprise built on cashew farming and general trading before he and his brothers expanded into a wider regional footprint. The group says it operates across multiple countries, including China, the United Arab Emirates and several African markets, and employs more than 2,000 people directly.

Backers say that breadth matters for a project that will demand heavy capital, procurement discipline and long term maintenance. Stadium developments in Africa often stall when financing gaps open or timelines slip, leaving clubs with unfinished shells and rising costs.

Yanga’s leadership is trying to head off that familiar story by framing the stadium as an institutional project, not tied to any one officeholder. Said told fans the plan will continue regardless of who leads the club, and he presented the partnership with GSM as a foundation meant to outlast current administrators.

The new stadium plan also taps into the club’s larger identity. Yanga’s rivalry with Simba SC is one of East Africa’s biggest, and a modern home ground is seen by supporters as both a competitive statement and a way to deepen matchday culture.

Mohamed and the club did not announce a budget or a construction timeline, but the decision signals that Yanga is moving from public promises into the first contractual stage, with the next milestone being whether ground work begins as quickly as the club says it will.