By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –

DIVISION Two Central Province side, Athletic Football Club has charged that it will be a misnomer if the de-linking of the Premier League from FAZ is ignored when it was the genesis of the restructuring talk.
Club chairperson Chisanga Pule has since challenged FAZ to include the de-linking of the league on the agenda for this weekend’s reconvened annual general meeting (AGM).
Councillors will on October 10 converge on Government Complex in Lusaka to table ‘unfinished business’ from the March 29 AGM held in Kabwe with Football House announcing Premier League restructuring as the main agenda.
But Pule said in an interview that this was the only time that the long-held dream of delinking the league from FAZ could be realised so that football could be run with best international practice.
“We feel that time is now to talk about the de-linking of the league. It was this idea that has brought up all this restructuring but this matter seems to have been ignored.
“The Super League has to be independently run by a professional football league body, independent of FAZ, because these are best international practices,” he said.
Pule said the expanding of Division One League would not help improve Zambian football but instead work to water down its competitiveness and questioned various reasons that were being advanced by those advocating for it.
He said the move to have four Division One zones would only reduce cost for those already in the league as they would now have a smaller circumference to cover while new entrants would suffer since they would have to travel more.
Pule said the restructuring that football needed was the decentralisation of management and creating age group leagues around the country.
“You have to realise that FAZ has to restructure by decentralising the management of the Division Two and Division Three leagues so that provincial associations could take charge of running leagues at this level.
“Furthermore, FAZ has to create a Division Four League which will be the FAZ District League for seniors. We also need to have FAZ Division Five which will be for Under-17 at district league and Division Six meant for Under-14 to carter for academies and nursery soccer,” he said.