THE Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) President Andrew Kamanga says the association is concentrating on qualifying the Chipolopolo to the 2021 AFCON and 2022 World Cup tournaments.

Speaking during an Absa sports journalists workshop, Kamanga said football was not about him but the players.

“Let us understand that my role as the president is not to be the person at the top of football because football is about players. I keep on saying that we need to demystify this perception that Andrew Kamanga sits alone, he does everything alone, there is a committee that sits and our role as the executive is to purely like a board; we are there to provide policy direction,” Kamanga said.

He charged that his administration was preparing the national team to take part in the next Africa and World Cup finals.

“We may have failed to go to the Africa Cup which is a common cry but we are taking steps to ensure that we rebuild and reposition ourselves where we can comfortably go and compete in the 2021 AFCON, participate in the 2022 World Cup, but to do that, we need to start planning and preparing today. These are the things we have been focusing on,” Kamanga said.

Kamanga further charged that there was bad publicity around the issue of the proposed Chipolopolo bonds.

“We have been talking about making FAZ financially independent, which is one of our key targets and we are trying to do that through the introduction of the Chipolopolo bond but there has been so much negativity around your reporting. I don’t know how many of you have taken interest to find out how this process is going to work because it is key to ensure that FAZ starts achieving it’s financial independence,” said Kamanga.

Barclays Bank which will start trading as Absa next year organised a one day workshop for sports reporters ahead of the inaugural Absa Cup which kicks off on June 8, 2019.