ZKU meeting on

Sports Reporter
The Zimbabwe Karate Union will today hold their general meeting in Harare to discuss various issues concerning the sport.
The meeting is open to all stakeholders as they review the progress that has been made in terms of improving the quality of the sport and plan for this year with the country set to compete in various regional and international competitions.

ZKU president Joe Rugwete said this will be a routine meeting.

“The Zimbabwe National Karate Team has grown to become one of the medal-winning sporting disciplines in the country,” said Rugwete.

“Its growth has been driven by the passion of both the athletes and their highly committed executive team. Because of the lack of funding from the relevant government ministry the team has so far been resourced by the athletes, their parents and the technical team.

“The market perception of karate, as a minority sport, has resulted in the private sector offering minimal support to the sport. In order to ensure that the gains of efforts made so far are retained, and enhanced, the national team has developed terms and conditions that are key to the administrative foundation of the team.”

The code of ethics is expected to give a structure to national team organisation and to clarify the roles of the various individuals involved in the team — the officials, athletes and the coaches.

It is also meant to clarify the degree and extent of the parents involvement and participation in the sport since they have been doing the funding most of the times for their children to represent the nation in different international tournaments.

Meanwhile, the union have set another date for the disciplinary hearing involving seasoned karateka, Tawanda Mufundisi, who accused the organisation and the Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture of neglecting him following an injury last year during an international tournament in South Africa.

Mufundisi appeared before the disciplinary committee last week in the company of his lawyers and Rugwete said they had to come up with another date after the lawyers asked for more time.

Mufundisi is now set make his second appearance on January 29 at Old Hararians Sports Club.

This is not the first time that Mufundisi has landed himself in trouble with the ZKU.

In 2013 the seasoned karateka was summoned to a hearing after sending emails to the chairman of the Kyokushin-kan Africa, Shihan Hennie Bosman, which ZKU felt were in bad taste.

This was after Mufundisi failed to secure one of the six air tickets that had been sent by the Shihan, specifically for kyokushin-kan karatekas, to go for an international tournament in Bulgaria.

Mufundisi, who was practising under the IFK, was not happy with the decision and decided to confront Bosman.

The move did not go down well with the national association as they felt he had put the name of the organisation into disrepute and called him for a hearing.

Rugwete said the process failed to take off after some of the local witnesses refused to co-operate.