MUKWIMA CHILALA writes
@SunZambian
THE Handball Association of Zambia (HAZ) has appealed to Government and the corporate world to help its Under-17 team travel for the African Handball Championships in Guinea slated for July 23-29.
HAZ president Bwalya Banda feared his body might face a repeat of an embarrassing situation of last year when his boys’ team failed to travel for the continental tournament because of lack of money.
“In order to avoid the embarrassing situation of last year where our boys team failed to travel for African champions due to lack of resources, government should step up and help out,” said Banda.
Banda said the association could not manage to send the girl’s team to the African championship on its own hence the appeal for help from government and the corporate world.
The Zambia Under-17 girls’ national team qualified to the African Handball Championship to be held in Guinea after defeating Mozambique by 30-21 goals in the just ended IHF regional tournament at Lusaka’s Olympic Youth Development Centre (OYDC).
But the HAZ president said that handball being a team sport, it was difficult to travel as his team comprised of a contingent of 23 members.
He said that in order not to have a repeat of last year where his boys team failed to travel and ended up being fined, it was better for government through ministry of sport to support the team by facilitating its travel to Guinea.
“Our appeal just goes to the ministry of sport and even the government in general for help, we don’t want a repeat of what happened to the boys where they qualified but could not travel due financial limitations,
“We have a team for the girl child that is doing fine, so in order to encourage other girls to participate in sport, they should do something for the girls team which has done Zambia proud by qualifying,” said Banda’
Banda said that failure for his girls’ team to travel for the championship would be a big discouragement to the sport of handball in Zambia.
He said having recently hosted the IHF Zone VI tournament on its own, his association had limited resources to send the team to the continental tournament.
