adminWebster Dzvova Sports Reporter
THE Ministry of Sport and Recreation is today expected to engage the Zimbabwe Wrestling Board Control in an all-stakeholders meeting to find solutions to the challenges facing the sport in the country.
Tapiwa Masinire, the vice president of the Zimbabwe Wrestling Board of Control, said today’s meeting will focus on the ZNWBC’s debt clearing to the International Wrestling Federation which dates back to 2012.
The Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhosini Hlongwane is expected to attend the meeting.
Other important issues to be discussed include the challenges bedevilling the local wrestling federation, future plans going forward and changing the Act governing the ZWBC.
Masinire said the ZNWBC coffers are dry, which has resulted in the board failing to hold its annual meetings since it was elected in 2013.
The current board is also looking for partners to sponsor the sport.
He lamented the high cost of wrestling equipment, which has to be imported.
“Wrestling equipment cost a lot of money to import into the country, it costs around $7 000 to $8 000 to bring them in.
“The equipment we are currently using was donated when Zimbabwe hosted the 1995 All-Africa Games.
The board has been doing its best to improve the standard of wrestling in the country in this tough prevailing economic conditions,” said Masinire.
He added that they are working on having a new regulatory authority to control the wrestling industry.
It is this body which is going to register all styles of wrestling.
There are 15 different styles of wrestling to be promoted and three of them being Olympic sports and these are the freestyle, Greek-Roman and female wrestling.
They will also discuss the amendments to the 1959 Act.
Masinire has also been invited to the International Wrestling Federation elective congress in France later this year. He was excited with the prospect of representing Zimbabwe at the gathering.
“I have been invited to France to attend an elective congress of the International Wrestling Federation on September 4, 2016.
“I am a member of the technical commission of the IWF,” said Masinire.
The technical commission is responsible for changing laws governing the sport of wrestling in the world.
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