Friday, March 29, 2024

FAZ and ZAFCA commit to honouring Makwaza’s FIFA World Cup dream

Share

The dream of Zambia’s first AFCON final captain, the late Dickson Makwaza, was to live to see Chipolopolo qualify to the FIFA World Cup, and now FAZ and the Zambia Football Coaches Association have pledged to honour him with that hope.

Zambia’s 1974 AFCON silver medal winning captain, who died on June 29 in Ndola after an illness, was put to rest on July 2 at Luanshya Central Cemetery.

FAZ President Andrew Kamanga and ZAFCA boss Daniel Kabwe said they will utilise the four-year technical deal with the Croatia Football Association as a base for Zambia’s 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup qualifying ambitions.

“We have lost a gallant sportsman who wanted to see Zambia qualify to the World Cup. Every time we met, we talked about progression and he said; why haven’t we gone to the World Cup?” Kabwe said in his tribute to Makwaza during the funeral church service on July 2 held in Luanshya at the UCZ Central Church.

“Yes, we have done everything and he appreciated that we won the Africa Cup and we have been to Seoul twice (For the 1988 Olympics and 2017 FIFA U20 World Cup) but what he wanted to see before he died was to see Zambia qualify to the World Cup.

“We can only do that by coming together as one football family.”

Kamanga, in his tribute to Makwaza at the same juncture, said the onus was on Football House to qualify for the World Cup.

“They (Croatia) have agreed to assist us though a four- year program to first of all build a coaching school, so we are now going to adopt the model that the Croatians are using so we hope that can attain success with that level of support from those who have done it,” Kamanga said.

“So if we can pick up from there, there is no doubt that we can honour Mr. Makwaza’s wish, that one day, Zambia will play at the World Cup, that, I think, is one way we can honour him.”

Makwaza was Zambia’s longest serving captain from 1965 to 1975 and won the 1972 Zambia Footballer of the Year and 1973 Sportsman of the Year.

He was also the founding member of ZAFCA in 1988 when he was its first vice president while his contemporary the late Samuel‘Zoom’ Ndhlovu was its first president.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Mr. Kamanga, football lovers in Zambia are waiting for you and your Executive to deliver results,not to continue listening to your empty and daily adjusted promises.Zambia`s performance in football has deteriorated at all levels during your term. Don`t you see this ?And yet we had so much hope in you.Please get out of FAZ.

  2. Watching AFCON 2019 I keep wondering how we have reached this point. It has been made easier to qualify yet we are not there. What will the Croatia model do for us to stop losing home games in crucial games? Are we really serious? We are good at eating each other. Forget Croatia have you seen the mentality of individual Senegal players? (Never mind their juju belief). Why have our players failed to perform in major European leagues? What did Herve Renard do to our boys to make them beat the best at AFCON 2012?
    CONDOLENCES TO THE MAKWAZA FAMILY. Ba Dick was a marvel. Thanks for giving us LINOS. RIP SIR. LETS GO ZAMBIA, COME ON

  3. Gentlemen, do not talk from the terraces, go into FAZ and see what is happening, there is real transformation in FAZ, and once this takes hold Zambia will be back at it’s very best, yes we won the AFCON but what happened a year later, we were booted out in the first round and that is where we started sliding down even before Kamanga came on board, so blaming Kamanga for the downward slide is not fair and it is just blackmail, we went down when Kalu was there and all that Kamanga is doing is to build from there and he is doing it correctly, so if you don’t believe in him, at least there are people like me who do and he will definitely take Zambia to the world cup and of course we are going to do well in the next Africa Cup with the development so far made. VIVA KAMANGA.

    • Iwe stop looking for scapegoats. Kalusha cant be blamed for Kamanga’s failure to qualify. Going out in the first round is certainly better than failing to qualify. “We went out in the first round” is not the same as “we failed to qualify”. TWICE- Something we have never done before.
      Your claim is that We started sliding down even before Kamanga came on board.
      Then he took over and we continued sliding down so if he is a leader of transformation as you want to claim he should have stopped the sliding but its getting worse and worse. Kamanga and his supporters must leave. We are not a nation of failures

Comments are closed.

Read more

Local News

Discover more from Lusaka Times-Zambia's Leading Online News Site - LusakaTimes.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading