Zambia: Football Association of Zambia launched their President’s corner today, in which they sent greetings to the Central Province in Kabwe, where they have been holed up discussing football development in the aftermath of the provincial Annual General Meeting.
Football Association of Zambia stated, “As always, being in touch with the football grassroots is such an uplifting experience. We have been to almost every provincial caucus to appreciate the steps our game has been making in the country.”
Under the revised and FIFA-aligned FAZ constitution, all provinces are mandated to hold annual general meetings before the main AGM. It was good to sit through the whole session and listen to the delegates run through their business. We are forever proud of one of the discernible legacies of my administration, which is decentralization which empowers provinces to run their own affairs, said FAZ.
Moreover, annual general meetings are always a perfect opportunity to take stock of football development in the region. There is nothing more important in the game than getting a sense of what is happening at the grassroots. It was also an opportunity for the team to remind the provincial leadership to take advantage of national programs to ensure the representation of their regions.
FAZ also discussed that programmes such as junior team selection, referee development and women’s team talent identification are better harnessed from the provinces. It is not helpful to just complain but take steps to rectify the mistakes.
Furthermore, they also said that their doors remain open for any form of progressive feedback. Away from our central province caucus, we had a team of inspectors from CAF checking on some of the facilities in our 2025 AFCON bid.
The CAF inspectors inspected facilities in Lusaka and the Copperbelt. Among the facilities inspected were National Heroes, Nkoloma, Levy Mwanawasa and Nkana stadia. CAF also had an eye on other support facilities for the 2025 AFCON bid.
With the AFCON set for June 2025, we believe that the government support we are enjoying, and also the fact that Southern Africa has not hosted since 2013, will boost our chances. Some infrastructure is earmarked for an upgrade while the government has committed to building a stadium from scratch in Livingstone, said FAZ.
However, the government had representation on the host support team to ensure that they have an appreciation of what needed to be done to actualize the bid. For the record, the full list of bidders has Algeria, Morocco, Benin/Nigeria (joint bid) and Zambia. We will keep the nation updated on how this important process goes, said FAZ.
Finally, FAZ Copper Queens will be leaving for South Korea for two international friendly matches tomorrow. The FIFA world cup bound Copper Queens has a clearly defined preparatory programme that has seen them utilize every FIFA window to play high-profile international games.
They also mentioned, “We believe that by the time they get to the tournament in July, they will be in a great position to compete with the best teams in the world.”
The final stages of their preparations will comprise an international camp in Europe where they will play more friendly matches. FAZ-friendly matches will be aligned to the style of play of the opposition that they will face in Group C.
Moreover, their world cup opponents are Spain, Japan, and Costa Rica. They also mentioned that they have no doubt that the Copper Queens will be one of the surprise packages of the 2023 Australia/New Zealand FIFA Women’s World Cup.