The Mauritius-age-cheating-saga is set to overshadow Zambia’s CAF U17 Youth Championship first leg sheduled for Nkoloma Stadium on the weekend of August 5-7 against Sudan.
The Cosafa outing was a perfect opportunity for the Zambian lads to prepare for the crucial qualifier but wih just over a week before the Sudan tie, the Zambian camp is in disarray after the entire technical bench was suspended by FAZ for age cheating and there is now serious doubt on the eligibility of the players in the team for the CAF competition.
The embattled team is expected to arrive back home on Monday from Mauritius but it will be interesting to see how FAZ will reconstitute the team.
First they have to appoint a new interim coach as well as send the players for another MRI test after the initial test conducted at Fairview Hospital were found to have been improperly done.
From the look of things, it seems all the players will be subjected to the MRI scan and in an event that about 5-7 players join Nicholas Mulilo and Benjamin Phiri in being over age, then FAZ has to come up with new players within a space of 4 days.
It remains to be seen how FAZ will react to save the situation with the option of asking CAF to postpone the game on the cards.
This is terrible
Hi hope te bena Kalu trying to undermine FAZ.
Their is no limit to stupidity
It is like things have started falling apart in Zambian football after the departure of Kalusha Bwalya as the president of FAZ.
I thought FAZ presidents don’t choose or are not supposed to choose players to the national Team. If that is so then Andrew Kamanga or any other FAZ president’s should not come into this.
In this present national embarrassing SAGA the problem starts with the players themselves. Unlike our time of birth (Before Zambia’s Independence) most of us were not born in a hospital, did not have under-five cards and neither did we and do we have Birth Certificates. But surely any player born 20 years ago should at least have a birth certificate. So the concerned players should have known their actual age.
Second, the technical bench must have known the results of the MRI Scan. there is no way anyone can tell me that the MRI Scan Machine used in Mauritius is of better quality than those we have in Zambia. Because Mauritius is not even more developed than Zambia. If indeed they knew about this age cheating who did they tell in FAZ.
if indeed they told someone in FAZ about it then the long arm of the law should visit and punish them to deter future would be offenders. How can you develop sports if you can’t even use the correct age groups.
Mwatusebanya sana bonse mwebali involved.
Such a thing has never happen to zambian football.but today it is happening under kamanga so to me kamanga is the worst presdent we have ever have in zambian football. Zambian football is going nowere with this man
We used to bash Western African colleagues on this site especially Ghana and Nigeria but today thanks to an administration that wants to score a success after a string of failures, we join them in the “Hall of Shame”.
The buck stops at no other than the president himself who promised so much and has delivered NOTHING.
What a shame. Who would have thought we would be inducted so quickly in the Hall of Shame?
this pf cadre kalu will be doing everything to undermine kamangas admin to have the new football chief discredited
Serial underachievers playing the blame game which they know best
Kamanga is confused he fired the whole technical bench which have experience to work with young star. These stupidy coaches wanted to impress kamanga..
To my thinking FAZ should bring back Chris Kaunda, the guy had to call 110 players and it was the whole provinces which was a very good selection and fair. Kaunda has been with the team for a long time and at this stage there is nothing bringing issues like he was appointed by Kalusha, that is not fair this guy is Zambian and a good coach to work with these boys.
Chris Kaunda will be the best option for the U17 team at the moment so he can continue were he left instead of the new guy coach because it will be like we still doing experiments yet we don’t have time at all.
The time of Kaunda we never head of this age cheating thing, Mutapa and co had own players and try to impress the nation. We don’t need coaching stuff like this who are not fair to our young talent.
Its not like am favoring the so called Chris Kaunda but if you look at football itself hes the only option we have.
FAZ PLEASE CONSIDER THIS MAN THAN ANY FOR NOW.
How can you honestly blame Kamanga for this……kikikikikiki, cant help but laugh at some peoples reasoning. I am not even a Kamanga fan but lets be objective bane….kikikikiki
Anyway big-ups to FAZ for taking a hardline and tough love approach. Another joker administration would want to appeal or back track and say first they have to investigate blah blah blah. This action to deal with the issue this promptly shows an element of good leadership. Age cheating is a norm in Africa lets not fool ourselves. The only way we are ever going to weed out this wrong norm is to act decisively and promptly by quickly kicking out anybody who entertained the wrong doing. Well done FAZ, the rest of Africa should follow suit so that we bring back credibility to our youth teams on the continent.
Ati, ” Age cheating is a norm in Africa lets not fool ourselves” coming from you? Shame, accepting poverty ati because my neighbour is poor!
Wait for Sunday , you will see how Sudan will further embarrass us . There should be no need of animosity towards those appointed by the old admin. If Chris Kaunda is good at handling young players , let him step in and help his Country. Frankly , I doubt if Bruce Mwape and Numba can do a good job . international football is something else as you need abit of exposure!