Tigers give up on U-20 players
Azam Tigers will play Saturday’s Standard Bank Knockout Cup final against Silver Strikers without three key players.
The trio misses the finale as they will travel to Zambia with the Under-20 national soccer team for the 2015 Africa Youth Championship final round qualifier to be played on the same afternoon.
“From the look of things, it seems nothing is going to change. So, we have decided that we will plan around the squad that we have.
“It is unfortunate that we are going to play a final match without three of our key players, but considering the circumstances, we had to move on,” said Tigers technical director Robin Alufandika.
He said the Bankers will have a double advantage going into this match.
“Apart from the fact that we’ll be missing the three key players, Silver have another advantage in that they have had enough time for preparations because we will train only for three days, from Tuesday to Thursday while on Friday, we will be travelling to Lilongwe,” he said.
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) chief executive officer Suzgo Nyirenda said much as they understood Tigers’ concern, the rules stipulate that a team can only be exempted from a match if it contributes four or more players to the national team.
Meanwhile, Standard Bank has confirmed that Civo Stadium will host the final match.
