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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
THE Hockey Association of Zimbabwe are expected to meet this morning in a delayed executive meeting that was initially scheduled for last week.

They will discuss various issues concerning their game, including preparations for the upcoming Africa Junior Cup.

The tournament is set to run from March 18 to 28 in Windhoek, Namibia, and Zimbabwe will field their Under-21 national teams for the event.

The continental tournament is serving as a qualifier for the World Cup and only the top two in each section will progress to the global event to be held later this year.

The national executive was supposed to meet last Saturday but they failed to form a quorum leading to the postponement of the meeting to today at Chisipite School.

HAZ president Humphrey Chigwedere said the main focus will be on the Africa Junior Cup preparations.

“We are supposed to meet tomorrow (today).

“Basically, we are going to be discussing the Under-21 national teams and the final calendar for this year.

“We are expecting reports from our stakeholders to see where we are and these are the schools. The major issue is about the Under-21,” said Chi- gwedere

Chigwedere said after the meeting today they are going to announce the final squad for the girls while the boys’ final squad will be named next week.

“We are going to be announcing the ladies team on Sunday (tomorrow) at Arundel. What we have decided is we are now about two months away from the tournament so we want to give everyone involved, the players time to prepare.

“These are the issues we want to discuss.

“The ladies have been practising during the week for fitness and Sunday the final 18 will be announced. For the girls there was an open camp because the players that were coming on average was 24 so we thought we will just trim the final team.

“The boys had a squad to be trimmed when we have our next session because we had more players com- ing.

“The budget is already there so we are trying to run around to say where do we get this. For both teams we are looking at $60 000 because the ideal budget is $30 000 for each team. But we may go on a lower budget,” said Chigwe- dere.