adminThis was after the event’s organisers excused themselves owing to the limited time in which to make thorough arrangements.
Highlanders were invited to the event at the beginning of the year.
The Bulawayo club, who struggled to get their prize after taking part in an almost similar event in the 1990s, had insisted on guarantees that the prize money would be in the hands of a bona fide authority and not an individual or the organising committee.
Highlanders chairman Peter Dube confirmed this yesterday.
“We got an invite to the Joy Foundation Charity Football Tournament in Botswana in September and we had been promised some big money in prizes and appearance fees.
“After reviewing the figures we sat down to discuss our position and we felt it was best if we could get some form of a guarantee that all the foundation’s promises were going to be fulfilled once we got there as we did not want to go and run into problems.
“This, however, was all for nothing as the organisers contacted us apologising last week that they would no longer be able to have us in their tournament because they had some snags with their partners with regards to providing logistics.
“They also said time was limited in which to run around and make all the necessary preparations for hosting us,” Dube said.
The Bosso chairman said the club had neither gone to the Premier Soccer League (PSL) for clearance nor had they approached Zifa and the SRC because the details until now had been hazy.
Aobakwe Ramadubu, the co-ordinator of the Joy Foundation, said they had decided not to include foreign teams because of the limited time in which to organise logistics for the teams.
Ramadubu said initially they had invited Highlanders and FC Platinum as well as two teams from Zambia, South Africa and Namibia.
“This is the first ever tournament of its kind and initially we had invited two teams from our neighbours, that is Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa and Namibia, but the time in which to make all the necessary preparations was limited.
“We scrapped all the foreign teams and the tournament will only have our local teams in its inaugural year although next year we will make all the preparations on time and bring in our neighbouring teams.
“The teams were not going to fork out any cent as we were going to pay them for their appearance, and they were going to battle for the prize money while we were going to give prizes to the tournament’s best players,” Ramadubu said.
He said it was their desire to make the tournament an annual event from 2013.
The Bosso chairman stated that the team had been ready to travel to Botswana and he said they would be willing to work with the foundation in the future but they would need an assurance that all they are promised would be fulfilled.
Online Reporter