Zimbabwe Football

The trouble going on in Zimbabwe women’s football team has not ended yet. The national team is denying to play their second-round Olympic qualifier second leg opposite Zambia on Sunday in Harare. All the players in the team have refused to complete the fixture because they owe allowances from Cosafa Cup of last month in South Africa.

On the night of Saturday, in an extreme step, four clubs asked their players to leave the camp late, and the Zifa attempted to field a club side as a substitute for the national team, but that plan didn’t work. Zimbabwe women team lost the first leg 5-0. The reason they give for their loss in the match was that they traveled to Lusaka by road because of which they didn’t get enough time to get trained for the match. After the match, Sithethelelwe Sibanda the coach of Mighty Warriors said, “Our country has to be blamed for this loss. Our country couldn’t afford time for the team to train.”

For the Sunday’s match, Zambia traveled with a small fans group. The team warmed up at the National Sports Stadium while the field was all empty and the match was called off officially 30 minutes before it starts. Rix Mweemba, the head of the delegation of Zimbabwe said, “This is really disheartening because Zimbabwe team is our icon, the team is so efficient that we can learn many things from Zimbabwe.”

Zifa is blaming players for breaking of contract and have asked FIFA authority for the match to the postponement to Monday morning, but Zambia said they are going back home. Xolisani Gwesela, Zifa spokesperson said, “We agree with the club to pay $150 dollars to each player for the two games, but sadly the agreement has been broken.”