Happy New Month to you our beloved football community. March has come with great promise on the back of a fruitful February that saw our Copper Queens qualify to the final round of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games qualifiers. It was such a huge step for the Copper Queens to eliminate the Black Queens 4-3 on aggregate. We duly congratulated the team and technical bench for a job well done. A great thanks to the fans that thronged Levy Mwanawasa Stadium once again to cheer our lasses as they have done any team that has played in Ndola.
We are a bit concerned with some few unsavory incidences of fans throwing missiles on the pitch either in celebration orbprotest. That is hardly a good advert of the Zambian game to the rest of the world. We will be taking drastic steps going forward including utilizing the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) surveillance available at the stadium to identify and punish erring fans. Football is meant to be celebrated and enjoyed and we hope that our fans can think about the players and technical bench that toil so hard to grind results before resorting to barbaric methods of venting anger or expressing excitement. We will be looking at enhanced security screening for fans entering the stadium with a possible ban alcoholic beverages. There has not been strict adherence on the smuggling of bottled beverages into the stadium which we have to curb urgently. These measures are necessary as we run the risk of being banned from playing our matches at home. Inevitably fabs will be denied the opportunity to celebrate their national teams at their own turf which is not only retrogressive but also expensive.
On the field of play we will be waiting upon the technical bench to provide their roadmap for preparations for the April final round tussle with Morocco. We know that it will not be easy but have no doubt that Copper Queens will triumph and seal record back-to-back Olympic qualification. Our prayer is that the entire nation will rally behind the Copper Queens and push them to victory.
On the Chipolopolo side of business, we have confirmed our participation in the 4-Nations tournament in Malawi that will see the Flames, Zimbabwe and Kenya compete as part of preparations for their forthcoming FIFA World Cup assignments. The ball is in the technical bench’s court to decide how they will utilize this opportunity to prepare. We are mindful that this window is the final one before the June round of FIFA World Cup qualifiers where we play Morocco and Tanzania. We believe that other than regional solidarity it will provide the competitive edge typical of neighborliness to help us prepare.
Finally, we were lucky that in the last few days a team from FIFA has been around to train teachers as part of the FIFA Schools project currently underway. The program covers all 10 provinces with over 50 teachers taught and certified by FIFA to pilot the project. They will in turn train other teachers in the provinces. The ministry of education is such an important cog and has identified 600 primary schools to be part of the first phase. We have no doubt that this project will re-ignite the spirit if grassroots football that has been on the wane. We can only encourage the participants to take this opportunity with both hands.
Have a productive week!
