FAZ President Andrew Kamanga has urged local clubs to upgrade their stadia in line with international standards.
Kamanga’s appeal comes after last Saturday’s Super Division match between Nkana and Nkwazi saw the entire second half played on a waterlogged pitch at Edwin Imboela Stadium in Lusaka following a heavy downpour.
The pitch at Imboela could not quickly drain rainy water thereby negatively affecting play.
Writing in his weekly column dubbed the Presidents Corner; Kamanga stated that Football House will engage members on the possible ways of ensuring that stadium upgrade takes priority.
“The debate about stadia is almost always sparked each time we have heavy rains or storm during matches. We know where we are coming from with the change of calendar that was done to align our season with the FIFA/CAF schedule. Rather, than complain about playing our games in the rainy season we must take up the challenge as an opportunity to work on our infrastructure,” he wrote.
“It is regrettable that our clubs have not been aggressively responsive in ensuring that infrastructure is upgraded to match up the level of exposure they have had playing on the continent. With strict CAF standards for hosting continental matches, it would be good to be forward looking for clubs that have targeted CAF participation to work on the football infrastructure,” Kamanga said.
“Some of the challenges around stadia upgrade do not necessarily require money but only a little effort. The dream of every club would be to host their CAF matches at their home turf which maximizes the proverbial home ground advantage. The easiest way out would be to demand that the nation revert to the old calendar, but it would be setting us several steps backwards. It may be easy to forget that even the old calendar had part of it played in the rainy season,” he said.
Kamanga most useless president FAZ has ever had. He spearheaded the changing of the league season without addressing the issues why we opted not to have the league during rain season. Very useless chap!!!
Why do we still keep him in office? We love failures in Zed!
Its not untrue about our love for failures. Ask yourself why Mpondela runs our athletics and we have never won a medal anywhere since 20 years ago
Ka Tasila built a sports field, and went to waste because no soccer team adopted it.
These Kamanga failures keep saying they have established better management but apart from winning nothing, how come not even a single Zedian club is in Africa’s top 50?
What abominable failures!
Africa Football / Soccer Clubs Ranking
January
1 Al Ahly Egypt
2El Zamalek Egypt
3Mamelodi Sundowns FC RSA
4TP Mazembe Congo DR
5Esperance de TunisTunisia
6Wydad Casablanca Morocco
7 Vita Club Congo DR
8 RCA Raja Casablanca AthleticMorocco
9 Al Hilal Omdurman Sudan
10CR Belouizdad Algeria
11 1º de Agosto Angola
12 Etoile du SahelTunisia
13 Dynamos Zimbabwe
14 Al-Merreikh Sudan
15 CS SfaxienTunisia
16 Stade Malien Bamako Mali
17 Pyramids FC Egypt
18 ES Sétif Algeria
19 Coton Sport Cameroon
20 Djoliba AC Mali
21 Orlando Pirates South Africa
22ASEC Mimosas Ivory…
Zambian soccer has devolved into secondary school levels under incompetent Kamanga’s administration. Fire him.
FAZ does not need to “urge” clubs but instruct them to ensure that their stadia comply to international standards failure to which no games should be played in such stadia.
Why do things because people in Europe are doing them? Bupubafye! Our season should be influenced by African forces. Rain stops us from playing from November to March. Now you are crying about rain drenched stadia. Couldn’t you foresee such silly things? Just get back to our previous season. Brazil and Argentina don’t stick to Europe season yet they have numerous players in Europe.
I was watching Tunisia vs Mali today and my wife was telling me you look so sad. I said yes its not the same without Chipolopolo. Oh what have we done to the hopes of great stars like Ucar? Zoom? Richard Stevenson? Effort Chabala, Makwaza? Zambians watching anyone from the terraces! Kamanga must go! Go very far from our stadiums! HH remove him!!