Zesco United say they will not go on a rampant shopping spree as they begin to rebuild following their failure to defend the FAZ Super Division title that they had won for the last three successive seasons.
The eight-time champions finished fifth in the shortened season due to the Covid-19 pandemic and failed to secure a top two league finish for the first time since 2012.
Zesco finished the season on 47 points, three points behind their successors Nkana from 27 games played after the league was cut from nine to two rounds due to a spike in Covid-19 cases when action resumed on July 18 after a four-month lockdown.
Zesco CEO Richard Mulenga said it was a huge disappointment after starting the 2019/2020 season with a promising ten-match winning run but only to finish the campaign with just three victories from fifteen league games played in 2020 alone.
“Zesco is a team that thinks in the long -term and that is one of the reason’s you see we do not change coaches here and there because we want stability at the club,” Mulenga said.
“So even in this rebuilding process, we would want to win the league next year but we have also got to be mindful that rebuilding takes sometime so we will not be in a hurry certainly just to pick players from all over to try and regain the championship.
“We are looking at it in the long-term.”
But Mulenga disclosed that Zesco would now be releasing some senior players in line with the clubs’ age-cap policy after giving them short-term contracts due to the player status challenges that earlier came with the transitional season that run from January to June 2019.
Meanwhile, Mulenga also revealed that Zesco is evaluating scouting policy in its developmental teams in the lower leagues.
“They are about five teams that we spend money but hardly any player comes through to Zesco,” Mulenga said.
“So we are trying to address that gap to ensure that we give young players from our development teams to break into the first team.”
