FAZ faces funding crisis for junior teams-Mumba

FAZ faces funding crisis for junior teams-Mumba

By Tony Nkhoma

SECURING sponsorship for the junior men’s and women’s national football teams has been the greatest challenge, Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) vice presidential candidate Dr Justin Mumba has said.

Mumba, the incumbent FAZ vice president said securing sponsorship has been a challenge because the government only sponsored the men’s senior national team and the women’s senior national team.

“The biggest challenge is the sponsorship for the junior national teams. You may need to know that the government only sponsors the main senior national teams. As for the under-23s, under-17s, under-20s and any other junior teams, they don’t sponsor them,” Dr Mumba said.

Speaking over the weekend on ZNBC Radio 4 Sports programme, Mumba said it was an expensive venture to have the junior teams go out and compete at the international level.

“Because as an association, you really need to be up to speed and be able to find money so that these junior teams are able to participate. What I’m saying is that we’ve done relatively well. We’ve not missed any competitions. We’ve managed to send all the teams to participate,’’ Mumba said.

He said now that the U17 girls and U17 boys had qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations and the World Cup, more needed to be done to raise funds.

“So with this challenge now, we need to bring on board sponsors to sponsor the national teams. That’s the key. But in order to bring in sponsors, we need to be attractive in our way we play football. If I look at it first, we need to professionalize the way we run in football,’’ Mumba said.

He, however, expressed concern over the shortcomings especially in the National Division 1 and the Women’s Leagues, where he said teams were not very well sponsored.

“So that’s an area, a big issue that we need to look at so that we bring in more sponsors to help develop the football of ours at that particular level.

Mumba who is the incumbent FAZ vice president has since vowed to defend his position at the FAZ elective AGM set for this Friday in Kabwe.

Kabwe Warriors chairperson Mutale Ng’andu is challenging Mumba for the position.