Shambolic travel arrangements could cost Chipolopolo

As the story of the Zambia national team’s failure to travel to Kumasi slowly unfolds, it is becoming clear that the statements which were being issued by FAZ accusing Ghana of not cooperating in letting the Zambia national team travel to Kumasi are just a cover up for some inept preparations for the team’s travel, Zambianfootball.co.zm understands.

A source close to the development told the ZamFoot Crew that it was not fair to point a finger at Ghana when FAZ and the Sports Ministry did not do their ground work.

“The issue is not about Ghana aviation clearing our plane to land in Kumasi, they chartered a plane which was supposed to refuel in Congo DR but failed to get clearance for that to be done,” the Zamfoot source said.

“There are no mind games here, we were already informed in advance to say the Kumasi Airport does not operate at night, so the pilot could not be given clearance by Ghana aviation to fly from Zambia at that late hour when they wanted to depart.”

“Why did they even bring the team to Zambia when the Ministry had already released money to charter a plane? Do you know that the team was marooned at OR Tambo International Airport from about midday or somewhere there and they only boarded around 21:30hrs meaning they only arrived in the country around midnight.”

The team then had a training session at Nkoloma very early in the morning and hoped to leave at 11:00hrs but was only called to board the plane at about 15:00hrs.

According to information obtained by the ZamFoot Crew, the flight to Kumasi is expected to take approximately 4 hours and the team will leave tomorrow morning which will still give them enough time to prepare for the an afternoon work out at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi.

FAZ had initially come under fire for opting to camp the team in South Africa instead of West Africa as earlier suggested and the shambolic logistics laid out for the team could just derail an otherwise presumptively positive outcome in the game on Friday.