Champs’ Cup to wrap up handball season

THE Zimbabwe Handball Federation are set to wrap-up their 2017 season today with the Champions’ Cup tournament at Southerton Primary School in Harare.

The one-day competition will mark the end of the ZHF events for this year and at least 15 men and women’s teams from four provinces are expected to participate.

This is going to be the second major competition where senior teams from different provinces come together after the inaugural season open tournament held in March. Most of them have been competing in provincial leagues in their respective bases.

ZHF vice-president, Alfos Mhondiwa, who is also the chairperson of the technical commission, said they want to assess the level of play by local clubs as they shift focus to 2018.

“We are looking forward to round-off the year with a competition to check on our level of competition at senior clubs. The provinces were active but as a start we did not have so many clubs active in some of the provinces.

“We also have coaches for the senior national teams, they are beefing up their squad for national teams. So they are giving those players that did not make it during the camp (in September) a chance,” said Mhondiwa.

The tournament was expected to attract teams from six provinces but Bulawayo and Midlands have since pulled out because of financial constraints.

“We have unfortunately some provinces that withdrew because of financial challenges. So we are now most likely to have clubs from Masvingo, Mashonaland West, Mashonaland East and Harare.

“And from those provinces we might get one team per category, that’s one men and one women’s team and from some we may get two. So overall, if we do not have any other province withdrawing we are expecting that we might be left with seven ladies teams and nine men’s teams,” Mhondiwa said.

The ZHF vice-president noted that they are likely to group the men’s teams into two pools while on the women’s side the matches will be played in a round-robin format since there are less teams.

The national federation’s president Stewart Sanhewe is hopeful of an exciting event with some prizes up for participants.

“That’s the last competition for this year, no other competition after that.

‘‘It must be an exciting tournament, that’s what we are looking at.

“Actually we have managed to secure sponsorship in terms of prizes and a few give-aways for the tournament. So those that will come and participate definitely, they have got something to carry home,” said Sanhewe.

Some of the clubs expected for the competition include Manyame Falcons, Kadoma Bullets, Houghton Park Sharks and Black Rhinos.