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Sports Reporter
THE highly-anticipated Beitbridge International Pool Tournament turned out to be a farce with players resorting to playing betting games after organisers failed to come up with the promised prize money.Chaos marred the event which did not start on Friday as had been promised with fewer games than expected taking place on Saturday.
Up to yesterday the organisers could not come up with results of the matches that were played on Sunday afternoon into the evening.
The event that was organised by Beitbridge Pool Association saw the body failing to avail the money that was supposed to be awarded to the winners.
Chronicle Sports reporter, Ngqabutho Moyo was allegedly assaulted by one of the players, Hillary Mukamuri in the chaos. The suspect evaded a police hunt for him on Sunday.
He had allegedly snatched Moyo’s mobile phone which he later threw to the ground, damaging its screen, demanding that images taken of the chaotic situation be deleted.
Police confirmed that they wanted Mukamuri for questioning over the incident. At some stage the self-proclaimed Zimbabwe champion grabbed and ran away with the journalist’s wallet.
The chairperson of BBPA Sam Siment confirmed that the association had indeed faced some challenges in the tournament.
“We indeed faced some difficulties in raising the expected money that we were willing to give the three competitors but we approached them and they agreed they were going to settle for challenge matches against themselves,” Siment said.
Patrick Banda from Zambia and Ishmael Mthethwa were the star attractions with Mukamuri in the tournament. Zimbabweans who attended the event were to feature as curtain raisers.
Some of the players who were supposed to play in the curtain raising matches blamed the organisers and accused them of paying attention to Beitbridge players only as they were denied the chance to participate in the event.
South Africa Under-23 Open champion Mthethwa beat Zambian champion Banda 11-5.
Siment said: “We offered the three players a chance to play for the available $150 prize money and they refused before resorting to challenging each other from their own pockets.”
Online Reporter