HARARE Province football teams have been disqualified from playing at this year’s 13th edition of the Zimbabwe National Youth Games after failing to pay the required affiliation fees due to in-house squabbles.
BY KENNETH NYANGANI
This has put another feather of shame to the Games which have for the past days commanded a low turnout in terms of participants as well as spectators after most provinces failed to send various teams to the Games.
A source close to the goings-on in the province told NewsDay Sport that both girls and boys’ football teams were not disqualified technically, but they had failed to pay the required affiliation fees which were pegged at $80 per affiliate.
The sources also confirmed that squabbles in their camp were threatening to rip apart the province’s chances of defending their title.
“It’s not technical disqualification, but they failed to raise the required affiliation fees by last night (Tuesday). The football teams had to source for funds to come and play at the Games,” the source said.
“We all blame this on internal squabbles. Queen Elizabeth head Dr Rayo was early this year appointed as the general manager for the Youth Games in our province, but we have Nathaniel Madzivanyika who has been fighting for the post as well.
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“And he managed to topple Rayo few days before the Games because he had the support of Minister of State for Harare Province Miriam Chikukwa and since then, we were in the dark until Friday. We did not know how much was in our purse,” the source added.
Harare general manager Madzivanyika confirmed the disqualification, but for a different reason, saying the province had the money to pay for the two teams.
“We will sit down with them and we told them of our financial situation. The issue is that we took teams that won gold medals last year and football teams did not reach even the finals and we had only $5 200 in the purse,” Madzivanyika said.
