Chronicle Editor
Fungai Muderere, Senior Sports Reporter
LOCAL pool players have been challenged to consider taking up the sport as a profession amid revelations that China has made great strides in developing and marketing it on a global scale.
Harare businessman Munhuwashe Ndanga, who represented Zimbabwe on logistical issues and as a player in a global pool grandmasters billiards tournament held between December 28, 2019 and January 8, 2020, in China, said it was high time Zimbabweans embraced pool as professional sport.
“I want to encourage local pool players to take the cue game not as part time but as a source of living whereby those with great talent should develop it to international standards. Given that pool is now a recognised sport in Zimbabwe just like football, it should now be taken as a real business sport,” he said.
Ndanga, who together with Isaac Chireva are benefactors of Chitungwiza-based Tigers Pool Club, was invited to China to help spearhead the development of Chinese pool in Zimbabwe.
“Chinese pool is already developed in South Africa and my invitation to China was meant to lead the development of Chinese pool in Harare in particular, and Zimbabwe in general. After our invited players that were supposed to take part in the tournament failed to raise money for air fares, I was drafted in the list of 96 players that took part. I am not a professional pool player and as such I could not make it into the last 16,” said Ndanga.
He said the Chinese have taken pool as a profession whereby players earn a good living.
“The Chinese are doing a lot to market their game on a global scale. It must be emphasised that they possess great technique of the game. They can break and finish the game in a space of a few minutes,” said Ndanga, a certified accountant.
He said he had a good working relationship with a number of Chinese nationals and had it not been for the Covid-19 pandemic, he could have organised a number of pool tournaments.
“I was working on a three-month tournament that would have seen winners walking away with brand new cars after paying US$50 participation fees,” said Ndanga.
The Zimbabwe Pool Association (Zipa) recently wrote to the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) seeking to convince the country’s sports governing body that pool is a low risk sport that should be allowed to resume under the country’s revised lockdown regulations.
“At first, we got a communique that pool had been classified as one of the low risk sports. However, when the Statutory Instrument came out there was nothing to that effect. As a result, we have written to SRC, seeking to convince them that pool is indeed a low risk sport,” said Zipa president Godknows Maravanyika. — @FungaiMuderere
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