By MUKWIMA CHILALA
MINISTER of Sport and Arts Elvis Nkandu has pledged to look into a request by the Zambia Hockey Association (ZHA) to meet their budget towards sending the women’s national team to the Africa Cup.
ZHA announced a budget of K627, 000 to send the team for the continental showpiece and they are still looking for sponsors to come on board.
Nkandu said he will look at the request so that they can help the ZHA the same way they have done with football.
He has however cautioned sporting federations against presenting their budgets to fund tournaments late but instead do so at least three months before.
“What I will also ask from these federations is that they should not be bringing their requests a week or two before their tournaments because I know that these people have calendars of events and if they give us more time, then we will definitely source for funds,” Nkandu said .
“So definitely we are looking forward to seeing our hockey team go to their tournament, but I need to go and look at their request because if we can source money for football, we can as well source money for hockey and any other sport, because we need to treat them fairly.”
The women’s hockey Africa Cup will be held in January 2022 in Accra, Ghana to which the winner of the tournament will qualify to the World Cup as Africa’s representative.
