This Thursday the group stage of the Women’s World Cup ended with resonant events such as the elimination of Brazil and Germany, added to peculiar stories with different teams. One of them was Zambia, who achieved their first victory in World Cups with a 3-1 defeat of Costa Rica at the end of their participation in Group C. Three days after that match, FIFA launched an investigation against their coach Bruce Mwape after being accused of touching the chest of one of his coaches.
a formal complaint about the alleged incident reported, which would have taken place last Friday after a training session. The information revealed by the English newspaper The Guardian included the statement of a source close to the delegation: “It is not appropriate for a coach to touch a player’s breasts.” According to his testimony, this fact was seen by several soccer players. That medium wanted to contact to find out the version of the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) and Mwape, but did not receive any responses.
The European newspaper reported that the witnesses would have chosen to wait for the last result against the Ticas for fear of not being selected to face the process at the Waikato Stadium in the New Zealand city of Hamilton. This accusation was formalized in front of a FIFA delegate, who accompanied the team during their stay in the country that organizes the event along with Australia and the president of the FAZ, Andrew Kamanga, would be aware of the situation.
The source also echoed the sentiments of a spokesman for the mother house of football: “We can confirm that a complaint has been received in relation to the Zambia women’s national team and is currently being investigated. We cannot provide further details about an ongoing investigation for obvious reasons of confidentiality.” And he warned: “When guilt is established, FIFA applies the strongest possible sanctions, including removing people from the game for life. Our track record shows it.”
This is not the first complaint against the DT of the African team. A few days after the World Cup debut, one of the soccer players on the squad uncovered a scandal in a chat with the morning newspaper: “If he wants to sleep with someone, you have to say yes. It is normal for the coach to sleep with the players of our team”. They accused the Federation of being complicit in their actions.
In line, a person from the delegation expressed how the soccer players were at that moment: “They are being threatened with punitive actions if they dare to say anything. The Federation (of Zambia) turns a blind eye because the women have had good results. It is his way of showing success and a good image to the public and authorities. But behind the scenes, it’s very ugly.” Zambia lost to Japan and Spain 5-0 and were eliminated in their last game against Costa Rica.
The country’s representatives are afraid of not receiving the USD 30,000 provided by FIFA to each player in the World Cup, since the money will be channeled through the national federations. “Any payment we make will be through the associations and then the associations will make the corresponding payments to their own players,” Gianni Infantino outlined some time ago.
The FAZ disclosed that it referred an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse in women’s football to that entity in September 2022 and Mwape would be among the employees investigated along with U-17 coach Kaluba Kangwa. The former is still in charge of him, while Kangwa left without an official announcement about the departure from him.
The 63-year-old driver, who arrived at the bank in 2018, categorically denied the charges upon his arrival to play the World Cup: “You keep talking about the same accusations. As far as I’m concerned, these are false accusations.” He was also consulted about this situation in the days prior to the crossing against Spain, but the chroniclers indicated that they would adjust to queries referring to “soccer and the tournament only.” The DT limited himself to saying that “the truth of the matter should come to light.”