IT’S a job well done to Zambia’s two representatives Zesco United and Zanaco, for posting hugely impressive wins in the ongoing Confederation of African Football (CAF) interclub competitions.
In the CAF Champions League, Zesco battered the highly fancied Guinea representatives Horoya 4-1 on home turf while Zanaco defeated southern neighbours Harare City 2-1 in Zimbabwe in the CAF Confederation cup.
These positive results really come as one of the good days in continental football for Zambia.
While conservatives will still believe the ties are still on, I can safely say both Zambia’s representatives are through to the next stage and it brings a lot of comfort because it is at this stage that Zambian teams stutter a lot.
In most cases, Zambian teams go into this stage of the competition when the local league is still on recess and this has seen our teams struggle to find their feet thereby coming off the first legs with poor scores. The teams struggle to get through after the second leg and on many occasions, they have suffered elimination on the away goal rule.
But yesterday’s results, though still in the first leg, means that the next round, in April, will come at a time when the local league is at full throttle and this will help the Zambian teams to sail through to the group stage of the two competitions.
It will be good for the two clubs to progress to the group stages as this will guarantee at least six highly competitive games that would determine how far behind or close a Zambian club is from winning a continental club’s title.
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The Sports Council of Zambia (SCZ) has decided to nullify elections results of the Zambia Hockey Association (ZHA) elections for just a reason that they were not present at the meeting and not that there was something flawed in the election process or that some people were unfairly disadvantaged.
That is rather strange especially when one looks at what happened just seven days earlier when the Zambia Boxing Federation (ZBF) wanted to have its annual general meeting which was, however, stopped by a court injunction.
This will definitely be expensive for this association which is already struggling to find money to send its national team to the African junior championship
The ZBF issue saw a very lenient hand and this angered one group which sought the court’s intervention, obviously believing they are not getting enough cover from the SCZ.
The ZBF injunction means two sports bodies have their issues in court and this nullification just speaks badly of what is happening in the local sports world.
Hope this ZHA issue does not degenerate into another bitter fight that will end up in court.
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