Zambia Looks To World Cup Draw

With World Cup draws on the cards in the African zone 24 hours from now in Cairo there is need to put the case for a foreign coach a lot more strongly before the government.

Granted there has been no money for a long time in that direction and also we believe football has served its penance through that absurd sum of money paid to former national team Dario Bonetti.

Few may still remember or care that it was on record in parliament when Minister of Sport Vincent Mwale made a Ministerial Statement that having taken the trouble to go to the treasury and ask for supplementary funding to avert a FIFA ban if the Italian trainer was not paid his dues it could be a lot harder asking government to folk out money for an expatriate coach.

It is not a secret that since that scandal was put to bed government has only reluctantly been able to release funds to the national team. A lot of us are still whining about the team having used a ferry on their recent trip to West Africa but FAZ was only able to receive last minutely from government K2.2 million of the K4.4 million budget submitted to the treasury.

Correspondence was only made available to them once the team had already hit the trail on their West African expedition. More ominously unsettling is the knowledge that for the last three fixtures for the Chipolopolo including the soon to commence World Cup qualifiers for the Race to the Russia 2018 government has only offered K4.2 million. So the road ahead could be harder than we imagine and no one wants to imagine any lapses after the ignominy of
missing out on Africa Cup qualification.

So aside from just the headache of having to quickly find alternatives there is need to ensure we have the right resource on the bench. It could be more important to have a coach who will see selection beyond the prism of Zesco United and Green Buffaloes.

Most important there could be more need to have a coach who will see things in an impersonal way as once did Bonetti to bulldoze his way and attempt to recall then midfield general Andrew Sinkala to the Chipolopolo on the basis of having one of the few players playing in a competitive league (Bundesliga).

So there will be need for the country to weigh their options seriously as it gets into the race to Russia. Being optimistic about the road to Russia will require at least the basic requisites are in place otherwise we will be down the same beaten path.

Most encouragingly FAZ president Andrew Kamanga has indicated that the country will have a new coach before the World Cup qualifiers commence. So for now we wait and see. Good luck in the draws for Russia 2018.

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