WHAT an embarrassment this under-17 fiasco is for the country.
And we can’t wait to hear from delegation leaders Kabaso Kapambwe to tell us just what really happened because this piece of shame begs a lot of questions and people are calling for punishment.
Just a few months after taking over from Lee Kawanu as head of youth football in Zambia, Mr Kapambwe, a FAZ executive member led a Zambia under-17 to the COSAFA under-17 championship with a pack of overgrown players and ended up embarrassing the country and consequently taking the nation backwards.
The mere fact that the players underwent a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) test ahead of the tournament where six were dropped and yet they decided to carry some overaged players to the tournament shows a systematic FAZ-run system to cheat.
More like the Russia state-run doping scandal, this one does not look different as it shows deliberate intentions to cheat.
I agree with the fuming Zambians who find the matter unbelievable and huge embarrassment on the country and is now going to make an already difficult task of taking Zambian players to Europe.
This event just brings to light the dirty work that has been happening in African football and particularly Zambia over the players’ ages and it a problem that has been carried on for a long time and people do not seem wanting to end it.
Questions that will now arise is how a respectable hospital like Fairview could produce results that are so wrong and in truth will injure the credibility of the hospital’s radiology department.
Or was it the FAZ that really wanted the trophy so much or was it some individual with interest in the players and because they want to market the players and cash in later.
It exposes a system that just makes people want to cheat even when it is not necessary and I cant wait for the findings of the FAZ investigations on who really engineered the cheating. Once this person is found they should not be allowed anywhere near Zambian football.
There should be no sacred cows in meting out punishment to the wrongdoers. Zambia now risks worldwide suspension from CAF and FIFA over this selfish action and also puts at risk Zambia’s hosting of the 2017 Africa under-20 championship.
Be it a lowly person or a high-ranking member of FAZ or medical men, the levels of embarrassment are too grave  as a driver and punishment should be meted out to start the rebuilding of Zambia’s name on the international football scene.
This should also serve as a warning to the FAZ over some names appearing on the Zambia under-20 team that they seem to be forcing play for junior teams as they did to Mulilo and Benjamin Phiri.
While the provisional suspension of the entire bench is welcome, the real cause for this should be brought out so that the cancer is weeded out of Zambian football.
This is a new low for Zambian football which has lately been riddled with poor performance on the pitch starting with the senior national team and then transferring onto junior teams.
Maybe we can’t get things right that we have to start cheating.
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