Chipata complains of untapped rural talent
Chipata, March 4, ZANIS ——— Footballers in Chipata district in Eastern province have complained of being sidelined in the selection of players when tapping talent by Football Association of Zambia (FAZ).
One of the footballers Joachim Zimba stated that every year FAZ goes round the country to tap talent but only concentrated on the line of rail as evidenced by the current arrangement of players’ in the national team.
The youths were reacting to a story in one of the daily papers which stated that FAZ Technical Committee has commenced a national wide assessment of players in view of the 2013 Council of Southern Africa Football Association (COSAFA) Senior Challenge Cup and the 2014 Africa
Nations Tournament (CHAN).
And Noah Zulu said there is capacity in the region to contribute to football in the country hence the need for serious consideration to have serious trials to pick rural players as they were also capable of
delivering.
And when contacted for comment, Sports Department Development Coordinator, Chebeza Nyirenda said that his department has a programme in place to tap talent in all sports disciplines in the region.
Mr Nyirenda also noted that it is of concern that footballers in the province are never selected.
Mr Nyirenda stated that his department will take keen interest in the FAZ programme of player evaluation adding that the department will monitor the outcome of the player evaluation.
He said that FAZ works with Eastern Province Amateur Football Association (EPAFA) to nurture talent and identified footballers who will compete at national level to come up with a selection of their choice.
Meanwhile, Mr Nyirenda stated that the province has a deliberate programme to improve on its data base to monitor all those that will be selected to compete at national level so that even when they fail to make it they are motivated by encouraging them to continue playing.
Mr Nyirenda stated that the data base will be for all the sports disciplines in the region in readiness for the Inter-province National Tournament for Youths Sports Festival in Lusaka which was scheduled for August.
He said that sports men will be identified at sector and district level which should be conducted by April and July respectively to choose those that will compete at national level.
The sports disciplines include basketball, netball, volleyball, athletics, football and chase.
Efforts to get a comment from EPAFA failed.