THE Zambia Draughts Federation (ZDF) is scouting for K500, 000 to send a team to 2019 Russia World 64 Championships in October, ZDF president Bornwell Mweemba has said.
Mweemba said only K80, 000 had so far had been raised towards the total budget. Speaking in an interview with the Sun, Mweemba appealed to the corporate world to come on board and help the current African champions travel to St Petersburg in Russia for the championships.
“We need to send a team of 10 members to Russia and they will be there for 14 days. Our appeal goes to the corporate world and other well-wishers to come on board and help us raise the funds,
“Draughts, being a mind game has a lot of benefits to the players, both the young and the old and that’s the more reason we even have a mammoth task of vigorously taking it to all schools, including in rural areas,” Mweemba said.
Mweemba also said the federation had set March 30 for its annual general meeting (AGM) to be held at the National Sports Council of Zambia (NSCZ) offices in Lusaka. Meanwhile, Mweemba said some officers had gone to sleep and that was not helping the sport and hence the importance of the AGM.
“This AGM is important because we have found that our house is not clean because we have some officers who are not active and they need to be replaced because we do not want this sport to suffer, we want active people.
“We also need to come up with some committees such as fundraising to help raise resources for the federation,” he said. In addition, Mweemba said the federation would also have a national championship from April 20 to 22 at the Olympic Youth Development Center (OYDC) to select players who would be in the national team.
“We have spotted new talent which is better than some players currently in the national team and hence the championships at OYDC to give a chance for new players to showcase their talents for possible inclusion in the national team,” said Mweemba.
Mweemba said the federation’s idea was to have a new national team each year, adding that there were always new players who needed to be given a chance to play. He said that each player intending to take part in the championships was expected to pay K100 as participation fee.
