African Roundup

USM Alger wins Algerian league championship

ALGIERS (Reuters) -- Striker Moncef Ouichaoui scored a first-half hat-trick to lead USM Alger to a second successive Algerian league title on Monday.

The defending champions needed just one point from their home match against ASM Oran to make sure of the championship but stormed to a 4-1 win, all of the goals coming in the first half.

Algerian international Amar Ammour scored the other goal which increased USMA's points tally to the season to 55 from 28 matches, with two more to play before the end of the season.

USMA would have won the title even if they had lost on Monday as second-placed USM Blida, the only side with a mathematical chance of catching them, were held to a draw to fall 10 points behind.

It was the fourth championship for USM Alger since the start of the national championship. Their previous titles were won in 1959, 1996 and last year.

USMA are on course for the league and cup double having reached the semifinals of this season's Algerian Cup.

Zimbabwe champions given a reprieve by CAF

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -- Zimbabwe's champion club Highlanders have been given a surprise reprieve by the organisers and will be allowed to replay their African Champions League first round tie against St Louisienne of Reunion.

Previously, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has disqualified teams who have failed to arrive for cup competition games but CAF's emergency committee decided in Cairo on Monday that the second leg should take place in Reunion on May 17.

Highlanders failed to arrive for the second-leg match on the French-controlled island at the end of last month, following a mix-up in their travel arrangements and an initial failure to obtain foreign currency to buy tickets for the trip.

CAF said it had studied reports from both clubs and believed there were enough grounds to order the match to be played again.

The new date falls on the weekend reserved for the second-round, first-leg ties.

CAF said the winner of the tie, which Highlanders lead 3-1 from the first leg in Bulawayo, would host the first leg of the second-round game against Esperance of Tunisia a week later on May 24 or 25.

The return leg of the second-round, second-leg tie will be played as scheduled in Tunis on May 31.

Alhinho named coach of Cape Verde Islands

PRAIA (Reuters) -- Alexandre Alhinho has been named as the new coach of the Cape Verde Islands, soccer officials said on Tuesday.

The 41-year-old replaces former Portuguese international Oscar Duarte who resigned last month.

Alhinho is a former coach of the island archipelago's junior teams and also works with the club side Academica Sao Vicente.

He will take charge of Cape Verde's last three African Nations Cup qualifying games.

The former Portuguese colony play Togo, Mauritania and Kenya in June and July in their bid to qualify for the 2004 finals in Tunisia.

The Cape Verde Islands have won two of their three matches so far, trailing group six leaders Kenya by three points.

South Africa

World Cup player Jabu Pule has gone missing from his club Kaizer Chiefs for the third time this season, just weeks after returning from a long suspension and a spell in a drug rehabilitation clinic.

The club confirmed at the weekend that the 22-year-old had missed training and a league match on Saturday and faced further punishment.

Pule, who has won 12 caps for South Africa and played at last year's World Cup finals, had a highly publicised stay in a rehabilitation clinic after admitting a drinking and drugs problem last September.

But he went missing soon after coming out of the clinic in November and later appeared in court over the alleged abduction of 16-year-old girl.

He is currently out on bail and will appear in court again in May.

Chiefs suspended the player for three months, forcing him to train daily and live at a club official's home.

Pule, who many observers predicted would become the next major figure in South Africa's premier league, made his return to the side last month and played three matches before again going missing.

Benin

JS Pobe have been handed the mandatory three-year suspension and US$1500 fine by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for failing to honour their African Cup Winners' Cup first round, first leg match at Etoile Sahel of Tunisia, officials said on Tuesday.

Pobe will not be allowed to compete in African club competition before 2007 after failing to arrive for the match in Sousse last month.

Etoile Sahel were given a walkover into the second round this month.

No reason was given for JS Pobe's failure to arrive but financial problems have beset African countries in recent years and there have been frequent late withdrawals from continental club competition.

Mauritius

The Comoros, who are due to become the latest country to join soccer's world governing body FIFA later this year, have entered the Indian Ocean Island Games in Mauritius in August.

The tiny island archipelago, admitted as affiliated members of the Confederation of African Football in January, have been drawn against Reunion in group B of the soccer tournament at the Games, which start on August 29.

Mauritius, Madagascar and the Seychelles have been drawn in group A of the competition with the winners going through to the gold medal match. The draw was made in Port Louis on Sunday.

Algeria

Chabab Belouizdad are to host a three club qualifying tournament for north African countries who have entered this year's Arab Club Championship, officials said on Tuesday.

Chabab will play against CS Sfaxien of Tunisia and Morocco's Raja Casablanca, who were runners-up in last year's African Champions League, between May 15-20.

The winner of the mini tournament will represent the Maghreb zone in the championship, set for Cairo in July.

Zambian game still in turmoil decade after crash

LUSAKA (Reuters) -- Ten-year-old Timothy Mwiitwa Junior watches a video of his father playing soccer more than a decade ago and declares that no-one in Zambia now can match him.

Mwiitwa Senior was one of the Zambian national team virtually wiped out in a plane crash off the coast of Gabon when his son was a baby.

Ten years on, Zambian soccer has failed to recover from the loss and the families of those who died say they are still waiting for adequate compensation and the publication of a government report into the crash.

"It is boring to watch Zambian soccer now," said the young Mwiitwa. "I don't support any local team because no-one can play like my father used to."

Referred to in Zambia as the "Gabon Air Disaster," the crash off Libreville, Gabon, of a Zambian military jet on April 28 1993 killed the best players this soccer-crazy southern African country of 11 million people had ever produced.

Coach Godfrey Chitalu and his deputy Alex Chola, strikers of repute during their own playing days, gifted goalkeeper Efford Chabala, defenders Eston Mulenga and Samuel Chomba, and forwards Derby Makinka and Patrick Banda were among those who died.

Player Kalusha Bwalya, who survived because he chose not to fly on the plane, took over as captain soon afterwards.

Inspired by the fallen heroes, Zambia produced sterling football in the months immediately after the crash to reach the finals of the continent's premier Cup of Nations in 1994, adding to the country's only other appearance in a final two decades earlier.

Zambia very nearly made their first World Cup finals appearance in 1994, falling 1-0 to Morocco in their final qualifier when all they required was a 0-0 draw.

No discipline

But since then Zambian football has struggled.

"The current crop of players lack discipline and commitment. It is difficult to excel without these virtues," national team coach Patrick Phiri told Reuters.

"Players in the current team have to emulate the dead men in terms of discipline to make a mark," he added.

Soccer analysts say poor management, the absence of a youth academy or program and lack of sponsorship have taken their toll.

Sports infrastructure is in decay. The main Independence Stadium in Lusaka is crumbling and no new stadiums have been built in 20 years.

Zambian Football Association head Evaristo Kasunga acknowledged that soccer had declined from the heady days of the early 1990s but said his federation was working hard to rebuild it.

Relatives of the men who died gathered at a memorial service in the Independence Stadium last week and said they were still awaiting the publication of a government report into the crash. The presidency has offered no reasons for the delay.

The families also said they had yet to receive full compensation.

"The government promised to meet the educational cost of victims' children but nothing has been done," said one widow.

Vice President Enoch Kavindele said the government was committed to assisting affected families but his own data showed that only a fraction of compensation funds had been released.

No money

This year the government gave out three billion kwacha ($625,000) from a package of 16 billion kwacha (US$3.3 million) compensation it had pledged.

"The whole amount should have been paid by October 2002 but part of the problem has been that the government says it has no money. We don't know when this money will be paid out," said lawyer Sakwiba Sikota, who represents victims' families.

Patrick Mulenga, whose father Eston was considered Zambia's best central defender in the early 1990s, said growing up without him had been a painful experience.

"I have come to know my father through memorial services and his photographs. I will take up football as a career," said Patrick, 10.

Memory Chabala, who was born five months after the death of her goalkeeper father, said: "I have only heard about my dad and watched videos featuring him playing football."

Danny Mutale, who plays for Zambian premiership giants Power Dynamos and whose striker brother Kelvin died in the crash, said he was ready to step into Kelvin's boots.

"It is sad the team perished but I am not discouraged. I want to pursue a professional career like my brother did," he said.

In a letter to the privately-owned daily Post newspaper last week, survivor Bwalya, now a coach in Mexico, wrote of Zambia's and his own pain and loss.

"We were on a roll when fate decreed otherwise. What we, the survivors, were left with were the agonizing and never-ending notions of what might have been. Death cruelly robbed Zambia of talent -- established and emerging," Bwalya wrote.

"Though my own playing career is over, my football existence continues to be defined by the events of April 28 1993."

Reprieved Angola coach calls for club support

LUANDA (Reuters) -- Angola coach Ismael Kurtz, who was sacked from the job last month before earning a two-match reprieve, wants to see the south-west African country doing a lot more to develop club players for the international game.

But the Brazilian, whose contract was initially ended following Angola's elimination from the Cosafa Castle Cup last month, conceded finance would always be a problem in Angola, where a devastating 27-year civil war ended just a year ago.

"Angola needs more jobs for young players, it needs clubs to work hard to put players on the national team," he told Reuters.

"I take players for only a short time for preparation. I need the players to work hard on their fitness and technical training in the clubs.

"The clubs are working hard but, at the same time, we need more experienced players, we need players to work more and to play more international games for preparation.

"There is a financial problem: we don't have money. Conditions in Luanda and Angola are difficult -- many fields don't have grass. Even good clubs that play in the first division don't have grass fields," he added.

In his first seven matches in charge, Kurtz recorded a solitary victory in a friendly against Gabon while drawing three three and losing three of the other six assignments.

Fans and bosses alike were soon calling for his head and the Angolan Football Federation even discussed his successor, with Portuguese coach Bernardino Pedroto heading the list of favourites, before deciding to give him a reprieve.

"Football is like this," Kurtz said. "While a team does well, people don't notice the coach, they only see the good players on the field and a good federation.

"After you lose, you only have one person to blame -- the coach. Football is a passion but people should use their reason."

Bouncing back

Angola have two African Nations Cup qualifiers coming up in the next two months against Nigeria and Malawi, but only a slim chance of qualifying for the finals in Tunisia next year. Kurtz, however, believes his side are capable of bouncing back.

"We have a difficult game against Nigeria, which is a strong team," he said of Angola's daunting return leg away to Nigeria in June.

"It's going to be difficult but not impossible to win the two games [Angola host Malawi in July] and qualify for Tunisia.

"I think we've been unlucky. We played a good game against Nigeria in Luanda but drew 0-0. Against Malawi, our strikers lost six chances to score goals.

"Malawi only had one chance, in the last minute of the game -- a free kick -- and scored one goal. Against Zimbabwe it was the same," he said.

If Kurtz fails to make the most of his two-match reprieve, Pedroto of first-time Angolan champions AS Aviacao is tipped as his most likely replacement.

But there is no guarantee Pedroto would want to leave Aviacao -- who are through to the second round of the African Champions League and hope to make the lucrative last-eight stage -- for the poisoned chalice of the national team.

Angola have slipped seven places to 83rd in FIFA's world rankings since December 2002, but Kurtz remains optimistic.

"Our first priority is to qualify for the 2004 cup in Tunisia," he said. "If this works out, the next objective is to go for the World Cup."

 

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