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Harare Bureau
THE Zimbabwe Netball Association have extended their begging bowl to the corporate world to help bail out the World Cup-bound national team following revelations all associations whose teams are participating at the quadrennial fiesta will have to find their own sources for funding.

The Gems booked a maiden berth for the tournament which is set for Echo Arena in Liverpool, England, next year.
But unlike in other sport codes where teams are paid for qualifying for a major event, it’s different in the netball world as the International Netball Federation confirmed in a statement.

“Netball World Cup have to find their own sources of funding to attend the event. Teams are funded by their national sporting bodies (eg National Olympic Committees) and/or by fundraising and sponsorship,” read the statement signed by the INF chief executive officer Clare Briegal.

“The event is managed and delivered by the host Organising Committee (NWC2019 Liverpool), a subsidiary of England Netball who was granted the rights to host the event by INF in 2015.

“The OC is reliant on ticket sales and on funding from the national sports body (UK Sport), local bodies (eg Liverpool City Council) and sponsorship to provide the venue and cover the cost of running the event.

“Our ambition would be for the event to provide funding for the teams to attend, unfortunately the costs of hosting are too great for the organising committee to bear this additional cost.”

And the ZINA will have to run around to raise the funds to enable the team to participate in England next year.
ZINA president Letitia Chipandu yesterday said her association have since written to various stakeholders including the Government to seek funding.

“We received no incentive whatsoever for qualifying for the World Cup. In fact there has never been any before,” said Chipandu.
Hosting and participating countries foot the bills for umpires and other issues.

“Africa as a continent gets a grant once a year that is normally used for administrative issues during our Africa Championships, amongst other things.

“We have done our budgets and have submitted to the Ministry of Sports through the Sports Commission.

“We have also included budgets for run-up tournaments including the Diamond Cup to be held in South Africa next month.

“We also have the Pent Series in Namibia as well as Africa Championships and engaged a vibrant team of marketers led by one Zororo Makamba to do the fund-raising,” Chipandu said.

According to Chipandu, a committee has since been set up to raise funds towards the tournaments.
The committee is expected to work hand in hand with Mary Chiwenga, the netball patron, and some corporates.

As for the global showpiece, the committee will fundraise on a fly a Gem or fly two Gems basis.

“Now that we have the budgets and have done the hotel inquiries for the various hotels we are going top select one from, we have a rough idea of the figures we are dealing with.

“We have already engaged our patron Mrs Chiwenga because we have to get the ball rolling promptly.

“We also have Mukuru.com who have always stood with us for some time donating kits, balls and even cash, but this time we are extending our bowl further to other corporates who are willing to help to kindly do so in both cash and kind,” she said.

Another committee has also been set in England and they are already in the process of raising funds for the Gems.

ZINA is also set to meet with the Minister of Sports, Kirsty Coventry, to deliberate on areas that need special attention and as well get a greenlight for some of the programmes that are still hanging.

“There are some programmes that we cannot simply go ahead and do without permission from the Minister so we are yet to meet,” said Chipandu.