By MICHAEL MIYOBA
WITH exactly two weeks before the Under-16 Africa Basketball Championship kicks off in Tunisia, the Zambia Basketball Federation (ZBF) says it is struggling to raise funds to send the boy’s and girls’ teams to the games in North Africa.
ZBF president Maziko Phiri said the Basketball Federation is looking for K1.4 million to send the two teams to Tunisia where they will face the best teams in Africa.
Phiri said ZBF was focusing on youth basketball development to mold a team that will dominate basketball at the senior level in the future.
Team Zambia qualified for the games in North Africa after finishing second at the region’s five games which were recently held in Malawi.
Phiri said it was exciting to see Zambia beat teams such as South Africa and Malawi to finish second in the tournament which was dominated by Angola.
“Zambia for the first time qualified for the championship to be played in Tunisia from July 14. This is amazing for the country and it means we are doing the right thing and we need to continue but there is an obstacle. We are not able to send the team to Tunisia because of lack of funds,” Phiri said.
“We are here to speak to the corporate sector and the public to come in and support the boys and girls to travel to Tunisia. We have a budget of K1.4 million to meet in two weeks and there is no time,” he said.
Phiri said competing at the Africa Basketball championship will enable the development of the youth players who have the potential to play for the senior national teams in the future.
Asked what ZBF has done to supplement the government and the corporates’ efforts to raise the funds needed for the Africa Basketball championship, Phiri said; There is a lot we are doing in the background so that basketball can continue to exist. That’s the federation’s mandate.
What we have done as ZBF is to fully support the girl’s stay in Tunisia and now we are looking at the flights to get the teams to Tunisia and the boy’s upkeep.”
“We prioritized the girls and I’m happy that my team at the federation have worked hard to make sure that the girls are supported and now we are looking at the remaining balance to see how we can work,” he said.
Meanwhile, former national basketball team player Francis Makai says basketball cannot develop without support from the business sector.
Makai, who played for Ludic Looters said it is sad that the standards of basketball have gone down due to a lack of support from the corporate world that is key to developing the sport.
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