Eastern Province is one of the regions with great talents in Division one as far as football is concerned.
However, most of the clubs, almost three-quarters of the clubs in the region are struggling due to several factors.
The ZamFoot Crew now looks at the issues faced by teams in Eastern Province.
✓ Sponsorship deals, this is the main major challenge Division one team in the region are facing as most of the clubs are just Sponsored by the communities.
The only teams in Division one which have defined sponsors are Panza FC who are Sponsored by Soldiers of Gonda barracks, Petauke United, Chipata City Council, Katete United and Chadiza United who are all Council Sponsored sides, Zesco Chipata who are under Zesco limited company all these have Sponsorships, Young Nkwazi Sponsored by Police but they still struggle in the league because they seem only to be sponsored partially as they can not pay players on time, and most clubs do not have their players on salaries to motivate them.
✓ Transport- another major challenge teams in Division one are facing in Eastern Province because most of the teams are Sponsored by the community which makes it difficult for them to organize transport when it’s the game day some teams even arrive late to match venues because of transport. Most teams in Eastern Province Division one use open vehicles like canter trucks in away games.
The only team which can boast of having a bus in every away game is Prison Leopards of Chipata who received a bus from the government last season, Panza also in some games uses a Tata truck in away games.
✓ Long distances covered by teams – When it comes to away games, this is another challenge these Division one teams are facing. Teams travel from Lundazi to Nyimba for an away game, with little resources that only a few individuals are sacrificing.
Most teams can only travel on the same game day to avoid sleepover situations due to lack of sponsorships, teams are covering long distances compared to Lusaka and Copperbelt division one teams.
✓ Road network – This is another challenge Division one teams are facing especially those teams which are not along the great east road. Most areas in the Province have a bad road network as most roads are gravel roads and in the bad state where teams find it difficult to connect, the likes of Lundazi United, Chadiza United, Nyamphande Kum’mawa are located in areas where the roads are bad.
✓ Lack of Qualified technical bench- This is another real challenge these teams are facing and most of them are underperforming because of having unqualified technical benches. Most of the Eastern region Division one coaches are reluctant to go for coaching courses for reasons known to themselves.
Football being played today is very modern compared to the one time some of the coaches used to play and these coaches can only apply their old ideas to the beautiful game of football which makes it boring, very few coaches are qualified to sit on the technical bench in Division one Eastern.
✓ Poor player management- This is another challenge teams in Division one are facing, due to the lack of Sponsorships most of the clubs have no camp houses for the players which makes it difficult.
Ideally, the technical bench and the players before a game are supposed to camp together which is not the case with most Eastern teams, most of the players are coming from their homes and can come to the ground at any time, some clubs can’t even control their players because players give reasons as to why they have reported late for a game as they have a family to look after, it’s difficult for clubs to plan in such situations.
With the 2021/2022 season set to start next month one can only hope that the situation begins to improve for the better. A lot of work needs to be done, but a first step is needed to make sure things start improving for the better.
