Saturday, 3 November 2012

2013 NATION`S CUP: ZIMBABWE SACKS NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM



Zimbabwean authorities have disbaned the national football team, for failing to qualify for next year`s Afica Cup of Nations Championship holding in South Africa between January 19 and February 10.
The action comes in the wake of a major match fixing scandal bedeviling the team`s performance.
According to the President of Zimbabwean Football Association, (ZIFA), Cuthbert Dube,“The team has been discarded in its entirety”. 
Zimbabwe lost 0-2 to Angola in the last qualifying game for the continental tournament after it had carried a 3-1 lead in the first leg, and failed to qualify on away goals.
Shocked fans point to a 2009 match-fixing scandal involving the national team that resulted in a lifelong ban for 15 players and officials, which ZIFA announced in October.
The scandal might have contributed to the team’s poor performance in Angola, Dube added, without elaborating.


Dube told a news conference in Harare on Friday, November 2, 2012 in Harare “We will rebuild from the under-20 and under- 23s. These are young people who are clean”.
None of the players in Angola played in the “Asiagate” games.
The banned officials include former national team coach Sunday Chidzambwa and former ZIFA chief executive officer Henrietta Rushwaya.
Rushwaya sent the national team to play unsanctioned friendlies in Thailand and Malaysia, and a Singapore-based betting syndicate allegedly fixed the results.
Zimbabwe has only qualified for the continental championship twice but has never booked a spot for the World Cup.

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