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Miriam Sibanda

Ellina Mhlanga Harare Bureau
ZIMBABWE Women Football boss Miriam Sibanda says they are optimistic of better fortunes when they begin their campaign in the All-Africa Games and Olympic Games qualifiers starting early next year.

The Mighty Warriors will kick start their campaign in the All-Africa Games qualifiers against Ghana in February. They will start from the second round stage after receiving a bye in the opening round and the match is scheduled for the weekend of February 20-22.

The return leg will be played in Ghana on the weekend of April 10-12. Despite the failure to host the Unity Cup this year, which the Mighty Warriors usually use to prepare for such important assignments after Zifa indicated that they do not have resources to fund the match against Tanzania, Sibanda said they will find other means to ensure that the team is adequately prepared for the qualifiers. Zifa also failed to raise funds for the Young Warriors to resume their preparations early for a similar mission. Sibanda said they have started to engage the corporate world and well wishers to ensure that they have adequate preparations ahead of the qualifiers.

“I think I’ve said it before the only thing we needed from Zifa was confirmation to give us adequate time to engage the corporate world and well-wishers. Despite the economic challenges the country is facing there’re corporates who still believe in the girl child and still believe in women’s football.

“We’re talking to those and we’re sure we’re going to fulfil the matches. The Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture has also been very supportive.

“We’re confident we’ll fulfil our matches and as women’s football we’ve learnt our lesson, we’ve an appreciation of how to deal with Zifa in the future. Zifa themselves have awaken to realise that we’re here to stay. We’ve come up with a budget that we’re using to approach the corporate world,” said Sibanda.

Sibanda said they hope that Tanzania would still accept their second invitation after the cancellation of the match they had hoped to play this afternoon in the Unity Day Challenge Cup.

“We’ve started to talk to corporates and certain individuals, once the holiday is over we’ll be able to engage them more seriously. We’re now just hoping that Tanzania will agree to our renewed invitation and agree to play before the qualifiers.

“We remain optimistic and we’ll be able to have that match because the technical team thinks that it’ll give the players the necessary exposure ahead of the qualifiers,” said Sibanda.

Zimbabwe will be hoping to at least qualify for one of the events after missing out on the African Women Championships held in Namibia in October. Rosemary Mugadza’s charges fell to Zambia in their last hurdle of the qualifiers losing 2-0 on aggregate after a 1-0 defeat at Rufaro when they failed to utilise the home advantage. They then went down with the same scoreline in Zambia.