WHO HAS QUALIFIED FOR CAF? WHATS THE STATUS?
I woke up to a number of inbox messages inquiring over this matter after the week 37 rescheduled games were played on Wednesday and I hope people know the reason these games were rescheduled is because of this same matter.
Here is the reason we find ourselves in this confusion
Confederation of African Football (CAF) set October 15, 2018 as the deadline for registration of clubs for the 2018/19 inter club competition.
The highest governing football board in the continent tasked the various football Associations to furnish them with representatives for the 2018/19 CAF Champions and Confederation cup by that date.
IN ZAMBIA
The Football Association of Zambia following this communication set week 35 as the measure for teams that would be in top four to be submitted as Zambia’s CAF representatives which didn’t go too well with the Member clubs . A meeting was hence called were adjustments to the fixtures were done and we saw week 36 and week 37 being rescheduled. Take note that we have not yet played week 35.
After that meeting the Football Association of Zambia produced a schedule of the rearranged dates of fixtures and according to that rearranged schedule only week 38 would then be played after the October 15th Deadline. The schedule clearly shows that the week 38 games would be played on 17th November 2018.
Now just a look at that date shows that those round of fixtures won’t be part of the qualification for the CAF inter Club competitions.
Hence the situation we are in now.
If that’s the case then it means the four teams that have qualified for CAF are
1. Zesco United
2. Nkana
3. Green Eagles
4. Green Buffaloes
This is what we had posted immediately after the games on Wednesday which we received reactions and submission from well informed people that actually week 38 will be counted with the following explanation :
Faz will submit a temporal list as at week 37, but they will be allowed to change if there will be any change in the league standing as at week 38. (Not officially from FAZ)
This explanation hence defeats our earlier post and puts Zanaco back into the picture.
The question is, Will CAF treat Zambia as a special case and wait until the 17th November to have a confirmed list of teams participating. Let’s take for instance in the CAF Champions League with kicks off on the 27th November 2018 that is only 10 days after week 38 is played. Is this feasible?
MY VIEW
I won’t conclude this matter just yet but I think we are able to see were this is heading to. Clubs who attended the adjusted fixture meeting are also aware of what was discussed and maybe just maybe could be the reason why Green Eagles celebrated when they heard Red Arrows had equalised against Zanaco.
Practically it looks like the die is cast and CLUBS have to start preparing for CAF games .
But which ones?
