The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
NATIONAL rugby team players, together with their coaches will as from Saturday start benefiting from the World Rugby Food and Medical Relief fund.
An amount of 5 000 Euros was made available to the Zimbabwe Rugby Union through Rugby Africa at the end of June and the funds are meant to assist local rugby players cope with difficulties brought about by the coronavirus.
On Saturday, an official handover of the food hampers will take place in Harare before the distribution spreads to other parts of the country. Abigail Mnikwa, the chairperson of the committee appointed by ZRU to handle the funds said they have used US$3 000 so far to buy hampers and mealie meal.
“We are doing the official handover of whatever we bought in Harare on Saturday, after the official handover we are going to hand over to the players in other parts of the country. So far, we have used US$3 000 for food, we purchased 200 hampers but we only paid for 181, Probrands donated the other 19 worth US$11 each. We also bought 243 bags of mealie meal from National Foods,’’ Mnikwa said.
According to Mnikwa, hampers will be given to all the national team players that are in the country, that is the fifteens as well as sevens men and women together with their technical staff, medical personal as of 2019.
All referees who did international games in 2019 and the ZRU secretariat will also get hampers. The hampers contain two kilograms of rice, 1kg salt and 10kg roller meal.
“It’s way for us to give back to our national team players so that at least it can assist them in some way during this Covid-19,’’ she said.
From the 243 bags of mealie meal, chairmen from every province will get an allocation, with the numbers to be determined by the number of registered clubs in that area. The mealie meal is meant to be given to the neediest players in the clubs.
Funds which remained after purchasing food hampers will now be kept for the acquisition of personal protection equipment for players and medical personnel when rugby finally gets the green light to resume.
“The other money will go towards the purchase of personal protection equipment, priority is the national team. We will be guided by the medical committee on how best to utilise that money that will cover what is needed when the sport actually resumes to ensure safety of players and technical staff,’’ Mnikwa said.
Rugby is one of the sporting activities still prohibited in the country as part of measures to curb the spread of Covid-19.
@Mdawini_29
