Handball friendly moved

Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
THE much-awaited friendly matches between Zimbabwe and Zambia national teams which are part of the Zimbabwe Handball Federation’s first step to revive the senior sides has been moved to next year due to logistical and funding challenges. The games that would have seen the senior local men and women’s teams travelling to Lusaka had been set for last Saturday.

But ZHF president, Stewart Sanhewe said they have changed their plans as they also have another local tournament this coming Saturday and felt the two events were too close and could not fulfil both of them.

“The trip is on, it’s only that it has been postponed to next year. We have got the Champions League which we are supposed to do by the 23rd of December. So logistics will be a bit too big for us to do both tournaments at the same time.

“It’s logistics and funding also given that we are going towards the holiday. So obviously if you let people go and if we let the tournament run then we won’t have many people being able to go there. And then it becomes difficult. It will be a waste of resources.

“We would rather do it when we know we are fully prepared for it,” Sanhewe said.

The national teams have been left starving for meaningful competitions over the years, with the sport being played more at junior level with schools being more involved.

The national federation’s leadership promised when they got into office last December to prioritise the revival of senior national teams and it remains to be seen if they will be able to fulfil their promise next year.

Sanhewe maintains they are on track with their plans and 2018 will see some activities for the teams.

“We have the calendar for 2018 but remember this is just a friendly, it was not a tournament to really speak about. But it was more of a friendly match that we were supposed to play with Zambia. So we will engage them and maybe set a date that is convenient for both of us.

“Basically what we have done, remember that what we said as part of our strategic plan was that 2017 was a year to identify players for the national team.

We didn’t have any calendar in terms of national teams.

“So our calendar for national teams is starting 2018, that’s why we also saw it convenient that even this national team friendly match be done next year because that’s when we had slotted national activities for 2018.

“So we have got a calendar in place for 2018, 2017 what we have basically done is we have selected players for different categories from Under-10 right up to seniors so the national team we can basically say it’s now in place,” said Sanhewe.

The handball mother body has already appointed the coaches for the teams with Farai Gwisai in charge of the men’s side and Cleopatra Mareverwa leads the women’s team.