Warriors may scrap WCup quals
The financial plight of the Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) is becoming increasingly dire, with the body contemplating abandoning the country’s 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign.
In the past few months Zifa has failed to send respective Under-20 and Under-17 sides to international tournaments in Angola and Mali due to a lack of funds.
On March 22 the senior national team, nicknamed the Warriors, are supposed to travel to Egypt for a World Cup qualifier. However, they may not be able to honour the tie on account of their financial woes.
Ndumiso Gumede, the vice-president of Zifa, said that if by February they don’t raise about US$100 00 then they will opt out of tackling the North African giants in their backyard.
“If we don’t continue with the World Cup qualifications we will pay Fifa a fine of US$50 000 which I think would be better than incurring more debts,” said Gumede.
“It is not good but the situation we are in now does help us at all. We are in a bad financial situation and we have to find a way of solving things before they turn worse. We are working on it but we may not continue with the World Cup qualifiers as things stand right now,” warned Gumede.
