By GWEN CHIPASULA –

THE Handball Association of Zambia (HAZ) is scouting for about K500,000 to send the national team to compete at the 2015 International Handball Federation (IHF) Under-20 World Championship to be held in Sweden.
HAZ communications manager Josab Changa said a provisional 42-member team has already been picked and have started preparations ahead of the tournament to be held in June.
Zambia qualified for the World Championship following a second place finish during the IHF 2014 Zone Six Challenge held in Lusaka while Mozambique, winners of the tournament, clinched an automatic spot for the senior World Championship that was held in Qatar in January this year.
Previously, only winners of the Zonal challenge would qualify for the world tournament.
Changa said the association has picked a provisional team from which only 32 players will be picked for the boys and girls teams to represent the country in Sweden.
He said the money will cater for air tickets, accommodation, food and other logistics needed for the outing for the players who will be accompanied by eight officials.
“I think we have picked a balanced team with players coming from four Provinces which include Lusaka, Southern, Copperbelt and Central. It is a big opportunity for our junior teams to take part in this competition and we hope companies can come on board and assist us,” he said.
Changa said the association was expecting a good performance from the two teams especially that they had started early preparations.
Meanwhile, Changa said the association received communication from African Handball (CAHB) alerting Zambia to be ready for the 2015 All Africa Games (AAG) qualifier Angola.
He, however, said the continental motherbody has not set the date yet but that the players will continue training in readiness of the qualifier.
The AAG qualifiers which Zambia was supposed to host were suspended owing to failure by the eight participating countries to pay participation fees. That move saw the girl’s team together with Angolan side gain automatic qualification for the AAG having already submitted team lists to CAHB.
But the boy’s team will have to battle it out with Angola to decide who advances to the finals.
Changa said K18, 000 has so far been raised from the K 58, and 000 budget needed to end the team to Angola.