The Sunday News
INGWEBU Breweries, the sponsors of the popular annual Zimbabwe International Trade Fair Tug-of-War Championships, have decided to withhold prize money for the men’s competition which was abandoned at the semi-final stage last Saturday.
Nkosana Prince Ndlovu, the Ingwebu sales, marketing and corporate affairs manager said as sponsors they were not pleased with what transpired at the ZITF main arena last weekend but there was nothing they could do but retain the prizes.
He said since their funding was for a ZITF linked contest, they could not hold another tournament for the men’s winner to be determined.
“As far as we are concerned there was no competition that means we have to wait for another Zimbabwe International Trade Fair since the competition is called the Ingwebu ZITF Tug-of-War Championship. If people scuttle the tournament there is nothing we can do,’’ said Ndlovu.
“The organisers decided to return to us a result that says no result. We are upset about it but there is nothing we can do, we don’t talk about prizes. Where there was a clear winner like for the women we gave out prizes. We are investigating what happened and we will take an informed decision without using emotions,’’ added Ndlovu.
Disagreements ensued when the men’s teams were headed for the last four and with no solution found, the competition was abandoned.
Sunday News has it on good authority that the misunderstanding centred on Chloride who had lost 2-1 to Zesa Bulawayo in the quarter-finals who had protested that their opponents had used an unregistered player.
The referee ruled in favour of Chloride but the match official was overruled by other bureaucrats. This saw Chloride refusing to leave the field to pave way for the semi-finals.
The other argument involved Mutare Board and Paper Mills who are understood to have declined to take on FBC in the last four, a team they had gone down to in the preliminary round. The draw paper seen by this publication at the announcer’s table showed that Mutare Board and Paper Mills were supposed to meet Zesa Bulawayo who had an assignment against FBC.
BCC won the women’s competition with a 2-0 triumph over Ingwebu A. Zesa Holdings finished third with Zesa Bulawayo in fourth place.
