Zambia Women’s National Team head coach Bruce Mwape has been accused of sexually abusing his players over the last two years.
Last week, British publication, The Guardian reported that a Fifa contractor claimed that the 64-year-old former Nchanga Rangers FC coach intentionally touched her on the breast during the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand last year.
Fifa had also confirmed that they opened investigations into the matter last year during the Women’s World.
The Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) president, Andrew Kamanga, has since come to the defense of Mwape.
“In 2018 we took a decision to bring Bruce Mwape as a coach for the Copper Queens and that was a turning point for our women’s football because he qualified the team for the WAFCON in 2018, 2022 and 2024,” Kamanga said on Super Sport’s Soccer Africa show on Thursday night adding that, he “qualified the team for the Olympics in 2020 which were played in 2021 because of Covid and recently he has qualified the team to the WAFCON as well as the Olympics.”
Kamanga also acknowledged the controversy surrounding Mwape and said that FAZ is working hard to quell it through collaboration with FIFA and law enforcement.
“The success story has really been written by Bruce, of course, with a lot of controversy, of course, as is the case, where there is always success there has to be negativity around it,” Kamanga said.
‘Police investigation led to nothing concrete’ – Kamanga
The FAZ president said the association had engaged the Zambia police two years ago to investigate the allegations but nothing concrete was found.
“We have had those allegations so many times, in fact two years ago we had to involve the police, as you know sexual harassment is actually a criminal offence, it is not even a football issue,” he said.
“So the police did their investigations and to date there has never been any follow up of whether those allegations have been validated or not. They keep coming up even at the last world cup, there were allegations which were even taken over by FIFA up to this time nothing has come. Just last week there was another article which seems to suggest that something happened and they referring to what had happened at the world cup, in fact the police in New Zealand even issued a statement that there was nothing.”
He said, “We have taken a lot of support from FIFA with the safeguarding, there is a certain minimum standard you have to maintain and those we continue to implement in terms of ensuring that the environment where the players are there is protection, whistleblowing is allowed.”
Mwape is expected to lead the Copper Queens to the 2024 Paris Olympics again.
The Copper Queens are in Group B with Germany, the United States, and Australia.
The Olympic women’s football tournament will begin on Thursday, July 25, 2024, with Zambia facing the United States.
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