The ManicaPost
Fungayi Munyoro Sports Correspondent
WITH just a week to go before the Africa Club Championships, Mercenaries have stepped up their preparations.
The prestigious event is slated for October 22 to 29 in South Africa.
Mercenaries booked their place after winning the National Basketball Club Championships in May.
They dismissed Foxes 75-60 in the finals to be crowned the national champions.
Foxes will also represent Zimbabwe as runners up.
Harare City Hornets and Lakers from Bulawayo are the other representatives in the ladies category.
There are six groups and only two teams from each group qualify for the NBA Africa League.
Mercenaries are in Group E together with Ferroviario Maputo (Mozambique), Jozi Nuggets from (South Africa), Zambia, Dolphins (Botswana) and Lions Club (Namibia). Mercenaries chairman Innocent Sithole said his charges were ready for the regional showcase.
“We are more than ready for the tournament. We have been working so hard as a team. We are not going out there to add numbers, but to upset one or two teams. We have to win the tournament though we know that it is not going to be very easy. We have been training for the past four months and we are taking this tournament very serious. The main challenge at the moment is lack of sponsorship. We are appealing to the cooperate world to come on board and sponsor us,” he said.
Mercenaries will leave for Johannesburg next Friday with 15 players. If Mercenaries finish top, they stand a chance to play in the NBA African league early next year.
The league will be fully sponsored by NBA.
The Basketball Africa League is a new collaboration between the NBA and the sport’s global governing body FIBA.
The initial plan is for the 12-team league to begin play in January.
The NBA and FIBA’s involvement will include financial support and resources toward continued growing of the game on the continent, as well as providing training for players, coaches and referees and some infrastructure for the new league.
Silver said there are more than 400 companies in Africa that generate more than $1 billion annually, but the sport has not seen the same growth yet.
