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Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
BARELY a month before the Warriors plunge into battle against Malawi, where victory could end a 10-year absence from Africa’s biggest football festival, Zimbabwean stars — Knowledge Musona and Costa Nhamoinesu — were given a rare treat in Paris yesterday as part of a package of incentives to inspire them for the big game. Musona, the Warriors’ talisman, and Nhamoinesu — the defensive pillar who has developed into the team’s leader in the current 2017 Nations Cup qualifiers with some spellbinding performances — were taken on a shopping spree by ZIFA partner Wicknell Chivayo in an exclusive shopping district of the French capital.

Chivayo, who said he is in Paris on private business, invited the duo from their bases in Belgium and the Czech Republic and spoiled them on a shopping spree where the businessman said he spent $10 000 on each of the two players.

The businessman was charmed by Musona after the forward converted a cheeky penalty, known as the panenka in world football, to give the Warriors the lead in their 2017 Nations Cup qualifier against Swaziland at the National Sports Stadium on Easter Monday.

With the game goalless, and pressure rising in the stands before a huge crowd at the giant stadium, Musona made it all look simple by cheekily lifting the ball from the spot, with the faintest of touches, and stroking it straight into goal as the Swazi ‘keeper cursed his decision, and the subsequent embarrassment, to dive to his left.

Chivayo has poured more than $600 000 into ZIFA coffers since announcing he would help fund the game’s activities in support of ZIFA president Philip Chiyangwa.