Zambia secured a place at the Olympics with a decisive 2-0 win against Morocco.
This Facebook post by Zambia’s Petauke Member of Parliament JJ Banda claiming that Morocco’s women’s football team qualified for the Olympic games, replacing Zambia’s women’s football team, Copper Queens, is false.
Despite facing the threat of disqualification from the Olympics after FIFA intervened due to money laundering accusations against Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) president Andrew Kamanga and three others, as well as undue influence by third parties, Zambia’s women’s team was not disqualified.
On 9 April 2024, Zambia’s game against Morocco in the CAF Women’s Qualifier concluded with a 2-1 victory for Zambia, qualifying them for the Paris Olympic Games.
This claim, published on April 27, 2024, likely stemmed from the FAZ’s troubles, which began when FAZ executives were arrested on April 23, 2024.
The Supreme Court of Zambia then ordered FAZ to postpone the date of their Annual General Meeting (AGM) until their court cases were resolved. However, FIFA’s rules and regulations stipulate that all member associations must operate independently and not be influenced by external forces such as governments, political parties or the police.
Consequently, FAZ decided to proceed with their FIFA-sanctioned AGM on 27 April but delegates were dispersed by the police. This interference led to the claim that the Copper Queens were disqualified because external forces disrupted the FAZ AGM.
However, there’s no public notice of the Copper Queens being disqualified from the 2024 Olympics.
Additionally, FAZ public relations officer Sydney Mugala disregarded the claim.
Further, Zambia’s president, Hakainde Hichilema, has since requested that the football house and aggrieved parties reach a resolution and not wait for a FIFA ban.
This blog post was produced by Bloggers of Zambia, under the African Fact-Checking Incubator programme, with support from PesaCheck, Code for Africa’s fact-checking initiative, and the African Fact-Checking Alliance(AFCA).
