Bulawayo accommodation woes for Mozambique ahead of friendly

After arriving at midnight in Bulawayo ahead of their friendly encounter against the Warriors at Barbourfields Stadium this afternoon, Mozambique spent the night at an unrated hotel before being moved to Cresta Churchill Arms yesterday morning.

Mozambique is in the country to play against the Warriors as part of the hosts' preparations for the CHAN tournament scheduled for South Africa early next year.
 
Warriors' head coach Ian Gorowa, who arrived on the same flight as the visitors, is using the match to identify players that will travel to South Africa for the tournament.

The Mambas touched down at Joshua Mqabuko International Airport at about midnight, but were unable to check in at Crest Churchill Arms because there was no room despite being told that they would be staying there.

Speaking to The Sunday Mail Sport, a member of the delegation who refused to be named confirmed that they had spent the night at the Selbourne Hotel.

The Mozambican said upon arrival they were informed that Crest Churchill did not have enough rooms to accommodate all of them and they were forced to sleep at the Selbourne Hotel.
 
"We arrived in Bulawayo at about midnight on Friday and were told that the hotel we were supposed to stay in did not have enough rooms for our delegation.

"We were then asked to spend the night at some hotel called Selbourne which was unsuitable for a national team. We are very unhappy about this and we will be writing a letter of complaint to the local association," fumed the visitor.

While the visitors were bedding down at the sub standard hotel, the Warriors were booked at a Reynolds Inn in Barham Green, a questionable choice to accommodate a national team involved in preparations for an important competition such as the CHAN tournament.

When contacted yesterday, Zifa communications manager Xolisani Gwesela preferred not to comment.
Further efforts to get a comment from Gwesela were fruitless as he continually disconnected calls from this paper. Questions forwarded to the Zifa communications manager via his Facebook chat also went unanswered.

Ahead of the tie, Zifa has struggled to put together a comprehensive camp for the fixture purportedly due to numerous logistical problems.

On Friday, the Warriors held their first training session at White City Stadium without Gorowa who was still in Harare.

They trained under assistant coaches Calisto Pasuwa and Mkhupali Masuku, while the goalkeepers went through their paces under Richard Tswatswa and Gift Muzadzi, a situation that raised a lot of questions among sports journalists who watched the training session.

During the Warriors' training session that day, the head of delegation, Sidney Madzvimbo, who is also the Zifa Southern Region Secretary General, was unable to explain the chaotic situation in the Warriors' camp.
The administrator was left alone to oversee preparations for the friendly match, with many of the association's leaders in the region traveling to Harare for a meeting with Zifa president Cuthbert Dube.

Preparations for the Mozambique tie have been mired in chaos with only seven players from Bulawayo attending the first day of camp.

The seven players from Bulawayo - Chicken Inn's trio of Felix Chindungwe, Danny Phiri and Dynamos target Kudakwashe Mahachi, Highlanders' Munyaradzi Diya, Bruce Kangwa and Milton Ncube and Bantu Rovers' Nqobizitha Masuku - arrived at the Bulawayo Zifa offices on Thursday morning only to wait for hours in the team bus.