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Ray Bande in MUTARE
THE Warriors are set to leave for the AFCON finals in style as plans for a colourful joint send-off ceremony with Bafana Bafana scheduled for Harare on May 25 are at an advanced stage.

ZIFA president Felton Kamambo told The Herald here yesterday that the send-off ceremony will be held the night before a friendly match between the two teams in the capital.

“We are serious in our preparations for the AFCON tournament and we have quite a number of plans in place, some that I cannot talk about at the moment because of contractual agreements that first have to be met before going public,’’ said Kamambo.

“In terms of serious friendly matches, we actually have one against South Africa that we hope will come to fruition because plans are at an advanced stage.

“This is part of a joint send-off ceremony that we hope to have together with the South Africa national team that is also going to AFCON finals.

“A friendly match between the two teams will be played on the 26th of May the next day after the send-off ceremony slated for the 25th.

“We intend to have the friendly match here, but it is yet to be finalised.’’

The ZIFA president said there were also plans to have a friendly match in Nigeria

“We will also go to Nigeria where we intend to play a game in Nigeria, but that is yet to be confirmed.

“We are still working on contractual agreements. I think we will play three serious friendly matches that will afford the coaches a chance to fine tune their squad ahead of the tournament,” he said.

Kamambo maintained that he is confident the Umbro kit deal will sail through as planned.

The Zifa president scoffed at rumours being peddled via social media that some members of his executive were angling to benefit from the Umbro kit deal through kickbacks.

“The Umbro kit deal is on and we are very confident that they (Umbro) will provide the kit before the start of the AFCON tournament.”