FAZ president Andrew Kamanga says Football House has opened an inquiry through the Zambia Police and FIFA over the social media driven sex scandal involving the women’s national teams.
Featuring on SuperSport’s popular Soccer Africa program in South Africa, Kamanga said although FAZ had not received any official complaint from anyone over the alleged sex scandal, an inquiry had been opened encouraging anyone with information to come forward.
Kamanga said those that were not comfortable bringing evidence to FAZ could either utilize the Zambia Police route or the FIFA independent inquiry.
“What happened was that there was a lot of social media comments around the stories and obviously we had to investigate internally, and I can state here that from where we stand, we have never received any complaint other than what we have read in social media,” he said.
“But what we also did, as a responsible federation, was to open an investigation so we have now asked all those who may have evidence to bring it forward. We have also gone further because this is a very sensitive issue, we have had to write to FIFA to ask them to carry out an independent investigation. We have also, as you would expect, these are matters, which are no longer football-related matters but border on crime, we had to ask the Zambia Police to go and investigate and whoever is found wanting will obviously have to face the consequences.”
Kamanga said FAZ had learnt of the many avenues within FIFA for dealing with various challenges as was the case was with the controversial gender verification regulations prescribed by CAF during the WAFCON that excluded some of Zambia’s best players.
He said that FIFA had a wing that could independently dig into the sex allegations that were being bandied within the Zambian game.
“So, it will be independent, and this is why we feel as a federation, we do not want to be the ones running the process because tomorrow we will be accused that we are taking sides. So, we prefer that an independent body such as FIFA which has the capacity to do it will be able to handle the inquiries,” he said.
“Definitely we are going to take sanctions, we have enough rules and regulations within football which we can deal with.”
Kamanga said the police had been engaged on the premise that some of the matters being alleged bordered on criminality which was a preserve of law enforcement agencies.
“As I said some of these matters border on crime and have nothing to do with football and it will now be the state police to deal with. This is why we have openly said that those who can report to us, feel free to come in, those who can go to the police feel free to do that because we want to get the bottom of this,” he said.
He also disclosed that there were enough safety nets around some women national teams with trained security personnel and managers to detect some of the transgressions being alleged.
“Just to give you a bit of comfort in terms of what normally happens when a team is in camp all teams have matrons (manager) and police officers who are women, so we expect that even when these things are happening there will obviously be a way in which they can find their way out,” he said.
“But I can assure whatever has happened will have to be interrogated to get to a point where we are very clear with where we are going.”
On the status of the search for the long-term Chipolopolo job after Croat Aljosa Asanovic jumped ship in the aftermath of Zambia’s failure to qualify to the CHAN, Kamanga said the association will trigger the process soon.
“We will obviously start the search; we have enough time before the next round of qualifiers. It was quite strange because what happened was the coach was in the middle of the CHAN tournament and one of the key performance criteria for his contract was to qualify the team to CHAN. So, the day he did not qualify he just jumped on the plane, and he has never been back,” he said.
“Whilst he was away, he sent a demand that we had not paid him and as far as our records are showing, we owe him nothing and unfortunately you will agree with me that if you have not worked, there is no basis to be paid.”
He added: “From the time I have been president of the FA, this is the coach we have never missed to pay, of all the coaches.”
Kamanga was outmaneuvered by Patrice Motsepe, the corrupt president of CAF, who kicked Barbara Banda out of the AFCON, after she destroyed South Africa in a friendly held earlier this year. Kamanga should have sought an injuction in court, wherever CAF is headquartered, If he did that Barbara would have been allowed to play. Either way, this tournament saw very strange decisions in key games South Africa played in. Tunisia were denied a clear penalty in the dying minutes which would levelled the score to 1-1, and probably sent the game to overtime. A dubious penalty was awarded against Zambia, allowing South Africa to go to the final.
FAZ can’t investigate itself. ZP can’t instill confidence in the victims who are the key witnesses in the matter. Elvis Nkandu must take interest in this matter and constitute a team of eminent persons to conduct an inquiry or else MPs must compel the Speaker to move the parliamentary committee on sports to conduct the inquiry. Apart from sexual abuse there are other mischief that happen in sports circles that must be dealt with. As for the status of FAZ, Kamanga has completely failed. Let him leave it to others as his continued stay at Football House is detrimental to the development of football
Zambian soccer has never ever reached these depths of failure. Itsleaderless and followerless. The leaders dont know how to lead and the soccer fans dont know what they are missing because all they have grown up under is failure failure failure.
“Kamanga said FAZ had learnt of the many avenues within FIFA for dealing with various challenges as was the case was with the controversial gender verification regulations prescribed by CAF during the WAFCON that excluded some of Zambia’s best players”. So why didn’t FAZ use those avenues to get the banned players play in AFCON?
The world is still struggling with sex scandals in women sport. Recently there is a sex scandal in american women football. Coaches have bn “assisting ” the sports women. Sometimes inviting the women to their hotel rooms. In female boxing , the coaches have bn “assisting” their boxers after training. The same is now happening in women cricket in SA. In our own shepolopolo scandals have come out.
Even in universities and colleges……lecturers have been getting sex to issue favourable degree /certificates to female students. It is also common is police in some countries and most work places where women get promoted after offering their bosses. In politics we heard how women candidates offered themselves to get adopted . Its complicated!!!
@Soccer fan.
Every football event has its own guidelines.The controversial gender verification regulations prescribed by CAF came about as a result of rampant cheating by African teams in CAF organized tournaments.
So FIFA had no issues with CAF implementing those regulations at the AFCON.
There was nothing else FAZ could do apart from escalating the matter to the International Council of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS)
Read the article. FAZ president is saying that there was a solution at FIFA so you can’t say FIFA had no issues with that.
What are the allegations? poor reporting, they should always give background
Can we start our own site? These people will never clean up their act
Football is developing in Zambia??
For daydreamers yes.
Watching the FAZ President, Mr. Kamanga explain various soccer issues on DSTV Suspersports’ Soccer Africa yesterday, made me a proud Zambian. once again The man articulated topics so intelligently that respect from the entire panel was so visible. I think the man has a vision and clearly an honest human. I salute you Mr. Kamanga and please keep it up
No complain, no case. There are some people who will always find something negative about someone that is going on well. Likewise, some people are not happy with the success of women football in Zambia. This scheming of falsehoods in Zambia, that was perfected by the PF, should come to an end in the country
FAZ should also engage police to hire a new coach. FAZ can’t do anything. They should also engage police to raise finances to pay the coach who has taken us to FIFA.
They know the girls have qualified to World Cup
They don’t want the current coach to go and enjoy.
Lets be fair to Kamanga, he has done very well with women Football and my suggestion is that FAZ is divided into two ,FAZ President mens football and FAZ President women football and Kamanga should be assigned where his strengths are
Iwe Quincy kekekekeke! There’s only one FIFA for both men and women. However I get your point the sooner we remove him from Chipolopolo the better for the men.