U-20 COSAFA exit angers Kambwili, waste of tax payers’ money

0
Players of Zambia celebrate winning the COSAFA U20 Youth Championship.
SPORTS Minister Chishimba Kambwili has expressed anger at the Zambia Under-20 football team’s early exit from the regional COSAFA Youth football tournament, describing the trip to Lesotho as a huge waste of tax payers’ money.

Zambia, the COSAFA Youth defending champions, were ejected from the regional tournament in the group phase.
But Kambwili said it was unacceptable for a country like Zambia to go out of a tournament that early when the nation was expecting them to bring back the title.
He described the team’s performance as a disgrace and that defending the trophy should not have been a huge task.
“I was extremely disappointed and heartbroken as minister of sports to see our team get knocked out so early. The boys’ performance at the COSAFA tournament was below expectation.
“We can not allow them to continue wasting tax payers’ money in this manner. I must warn FAZ to be more careful with how they let such monies go to waste,” he said.
While ‘spiting venom’ at the under-20 team, Kambwili had a completely different view of the senior team playing at the GOtv CECAFA Senior Challenge Cup in Kenya despite the Patrice Beaumelle side not reaching the finals of the competition.
Kambwili said he was impressed with the team’s performance which he claimed was outstanding.
He said it was a plus to the players to even manage  to play for the third position because while Zambia was using a developmental side, the rest of the countries were fielding players from their main national teams.
“I am impressed with the boys’ performance because teams like Sudan used most of the players from the actual national team that we played during the (2014 Brazil) World Cup qualifiers,” he said.
And Kambwili said a lot still needed to be done to develop women football in the country because so far little had be done for the  teams.
“Although the under-20 women’s performance against Equatorial Guinea was equally bad, I would like to urge FAZ to engage sponsors to help them establish a Premier league for women in a quest to develop women football,” he said.

Times of Zambia

NO COMMENTS

LEAVE A REPLY