Nkana Crowned Super League Champions
Nkana were this weekend crowned the Super League Champions, bringing the 2019/2020 season to an early close.
The league was initially suspended on March 20, 2020 in response to the pandemic. In recent weeks, following the resumption of non-contact sports such as tennis and gold, calls for football to resume grew and grew.
Clubs were issued with guidelines for managing areas such as camping, training, testing and personnel as the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) worked to establish a new normal that would ensure the safety of players and fans, while not burdening national health services and testing capabilities already facing great strain.
However, despite the various measures introduced to try and enable the League to reopen a combination of breaches, surging infections in the country and the delays in getting teams tested proved too problematic.
Commenting on the conclusion to the season FAZ President Andrew Kamanga stated, “It has been so dramatic that as with every final in football, there was never certainty of the final winner. It provided the kind of twists and turns worthy of a thriller. But being real life there were plenty of lessons too!”
“While it may not have been strictly in the football sense that there was no certainty of the outcome, we are happy that finally we were able to conclude the league in such grand style. Credit firstly goes to the winners of the Super League, Nkana who lifted their 13th crown and Indeni Football Club who were crowned Eden University National Division One champions. These are by no means small achievements given the status that our league enjoys as the sixth best on the continent. We wholeheartedly congratulate the winners for their success. We also extend our congratulations to all the teams that made it into the continental brackets. We have Napsa Stars and Forest Rangers who will be playing continental football for the very first time and also Green Eagles that have made it a habit to play continental football in the last few seasons,” he continued.
As the season closes Kamanga said it is now time for the country to put aside their club loyalties and rally behind the national effort to secure high rankings in CAF tournaments.
Speaking on the recent challenges presented by Covid-19 Kamanga stated, “The Covid-19 has posed unimaginable challenges that has had to push us to among other things wind up the league at Week 27. It has not been easy as we have had to learn to deal with crises that occur suddenly like the spike in the number of Covid-19 cases. When we resumed the league on July 18, 2020 we had not anticipated that we would run into the sort of challenges that came our way. Our prior assurances from the health authorities on the quick availability of results for Covid-19 once teams were tested did not materialize. Some teams were lucky to get their results on time while others had to endure until match day to get their results. In some cases we had to postpone matches to ensure that the safety of players was guaranteed. In the end it seemed impossible that we could carry on under this atmosphere with the health authorities stretched by the increased Covid-19 incidences.”
“We shall now get down to planning for the 2020/2021 season that will commence with our meeting with the Super League clubs on Tuesday. This will be to re-enforce our consultative approach with the membership. It will also be an opportunity to conduct a post-mortem of the 2019/2020 season,” he continued.
