The President of the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ), Andrew Kamanga says the association will do everything possible to make sure the Zambia U-23 national team qualifies for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Kamanga who was speaking in his President’s corner weekly post said FAZ are keeping tabs on European-born players eligible to play for Zambia and are willing to play for their country of origin.
Kamanga believes the U-23 has a good crop of players and since the team missed the 2022 Olympics they need to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“Away from the league commencement, we had the announcement of the draws for the Morocco 2023 Under-23 Africa Cup of Nations. Zambia will join at the second-round stage where they will play Sierra Leone next month. We have quite an exciting crop of young players that are eligible to participate in this competition and take us not only to the AFCON but the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. A host of promising young players are making great strides including breaking into the European space.
“We will also add those that are playing in foreign leagues and are willing to sign up to play for Zambia. We are still keeping tabs on some players in the diaspora that are eligible to play for Zambia.
“We are however going to restrict this scouting to players that are competitive and willing to feature for Zambia. Having missed out on the Tokyo 2022 Olympic Games, we will do everything to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The under-23 cycle comes after four years, and we are determined to make the most of this opportunity.”
The junior Chipolopolo are exempted from playing the first round of the 2023 TotalEnergies Morocco U-23 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.
The team will only begin the 2023 U-23 AFCON journey with an away second-round fixture against the Leone Stars on the weekend of 21-23 October before hosting the Stars a week later.
The winner of the fixture will face the overall winners of the second-round tie. It could be either Egypt or the winners of the first-round match between Eswatini and Botswana who face off in the first round.
•Credit: Zamfoot