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Xolisani Gwesela

Sports Reporter
WITH elite African teams battling it out in the 2015 African Cup of Nations qualifiers at the end of the week, Zifa are making frantic efforts to organise an international friendly for the Warriors set for Saturday.
According to the Fifa calendar, September 6-10 are official dates to slot in authorised international games.
Zifa is working on getting friendly matches for the Warriors who are ranked 24 in Africa and 90 in the world with the hope of improving their standings seeing that they will not be participating in any international competitions until next year.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Zifa communications manager Xolisani Gwesela said their hopes of playing Libya were quashed due to a volatile environment in the North African country.

“Sadly Libya have written to us cancelling the initial friendly match that we were supposed to play there during the September 6-10 Fifa calendar window. As you may be aware, they have suspended even their domestic league matches due to unrest in their country.

“However, as Zifa we are making frantic efforts to make sure that we don’t just lose this calendar date, we are working on securing a nation to play against. A decision will be made tomorrow as to who we might play or not,” said Gwesela.

This publication has it on good authority that Swaziland had offered to host the Warriors but Zifa are yet to respond to the offer.
Gwesela could neither confirm nor deny that the Warriors will play Swaziland.

“I don’t want to pre-empt anything because we have not closed the door on any invites and that is why I am saying call us tomorrow midday after which a decision would have been made,” he said.

After Warriors’ ouster from the 2015 Afcon qualifiers, Zifa president Cuthbert Dube took a decision to “disband” the Warriors and the nation has been waiting to see which players will represent the country in the near future.

The football motherbody are also yet to appoint the senior national team coach after sacking Ian Gorowa.