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Ngqabutho Moyo Sports Reporter
THE Beitbridge Pool Association (BBPA) chairperson Sam Siment has called for the abolishment of betting in pool tournaments.
Siment said this last week at a tournament held in the border town.Tournament organisers failed to raise money for the prizes, prompting players to resort to challenge games.

In the tournament, which attracted three international players; Ishmael Mthethwa from South Africa, Patrick Banda from Zambia and Hillary Mukamuri from Zimbabwe, chaos was the order of the day.

The players were not happy with the $200 that had been set aside as prize money on July 20 and felt they could make more from challenging each other.

Mukamuri resorted to foul play, flouting the rules of the game by touching the balls deliberately and at some stage he assaulted this writer and damaged his mobile phone protesting why pictures of his rowdy behaviour had been taken.

“We are trying to remove betting from the sport so that the players can play professionally for the love of sport and not for any other reason which will paint the sport negatively,” said Siment.

Challenge games have become a source of livelihood for some of the players and are blamed for fights that have erupted at some of the venues. Even fans put bets on games.

Siment conceded that it would not be easy to eradicate challenge games.

“It is going to be a problem, but we are hopeful that we are going to eradicate this issue from the face of the game with time,” he said.