By Staff Writer
Aspiring Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) President Blackwell Siwale says the association made a huge loss for failing to qualify to both Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) and World Cup.
Speaking in an interview with The Independent Observer, Siwale said simply for qualifying to Afcon, the team is given K10.4 million (US $800, 000) by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for preparations.
Chipolopolo has missed from qualifying to Afcon twice, meaning FAZ missed on K20.8 million ($1. 6 million) which could have helped in improving the squad and sending coaches to Europe for advanced training.
“Like qualifying to World Cup, each team is given K130 million (US $10 million) for preparations. If you look at West African nations their total focus is simply qualifying to World Cup. I mean simply qualifying and you have cool $10 million in your account.
“To those that have paid attention, we have the same West African teams qualifying for World Cup. It is always Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroun and Senegal. These teams have tasted the World Cup money and they do everything to qualify and land $10m,” he said.
Siwale said it hurts him to see the team fail to qualify to either Afcon or World Cup with a dangled carrot by both CAF and FIFA.
He urged FAZ to assemble a team of local coaches right now and give them key performance indicators (KPIs).
Siwale said among the KPIs should be to qualify the team to both Afcon and World Cup.
“The time to employ a local lcoach is now so that he studies his lads and twerk his own system into the team. If we wait any longer, we will again miss out out to qualify to Afcon, meaning the financial loss will automatically be translated to $2, 400 million (K31.2 million). With that money who needs football bonds?” he said.
He said due to his love for football, that is why he wants to challenge the current president Andrew Kamanga in 2020 and navigate Zambia through to Afcon and World Cups
