Former Nigeria’s manager, Jose Peseiro in his debut with Zamalek of Egypt had his club forcing a 1-1 draw with Petrojet in his debut. The draw left Zamalek with 27 points in third place of the Egyptian league, trailing leaders, Pyramids by three points and arch-rivals, Al Ahly by two points.

The former Nigeria coach missed several key players, and he had to reshuffle his team.

He made four changes from the previous game including Mohamed Atef who made his second appearance of the season.

He again drew against Al Ahly in this weekend’s Cairo derby with Al Ahly.

Peseiro believes his team’s 1-1 draw against Ahly in the Cairo derby was a fair result, but stressed the players need time to adapt to his new tactics.

Substitute Achraf Bencharki gave Ahly the lead in the 72nd minute, but Mahmoud Bentayg equalized for Zamalek six minutes from time.

“I think Ahly were better in the first half but without clear scoring chances, apart from the shot that hit the crossbar,” Peseiro told the post-match press conference.

“The draw is a fair result between the two sides,” he added.

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Not even the possibility of a first win of the campaign could tempt relegated Brazilian clubs Colo Colo and Jacobina to play their final Bahia Championship fixture this week.

With nothing to gain from the dead rubber match, Jacobina felt the 1,200km roundtrip from their coastal city home of Ilheus into the interior of northeastern state was not worth it.

Colo Colo could have avoided the ignominy of bottom place in the league by winning the match but agreed, and the Bahia Football Federation (FBF) acquiesced by cancelling Saturday’s fixture.

“As both teams have already been relegated to Serie B in 2026, and the cancellation of the match does not cause any harm to the other participants in the competition, the FBF accepted the requests,” the federation said in a statement.

Both teams had three points apiece from three draws but Colo Colo will now finish the season bottom of the league courtesy of a goal difference of minus 15 compared to Jacobina’s minus 12.

The Bahia Championship, also known as the Baianao, is the second-oldest state championship in Brazil and has been played continuously since 1905.

-Reuters

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A Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) Video Assistant Referee (VAR) Workshop commenced in the Zambian capital Lusaka on Monday, bringing together 40 male and female referees for an intensive five-day training programme.

This groundbreaking workshop is the first of its kind in East, Central, and Southern Africa, marking a major step forward in adopting VAR technology.

The workshop is being conducted by leading global and regional experts, including FIFA IT Technology Support and COSAFA VAR specialist Ramy Gamal,

FIFA VAR Instructor Carlos Astroza and COSAFA Referees Manager Felix Tangawarima, who also doubles as VAR project manager.

Speaking on the sidelines workshop, Tangawarima emphasised COSAFA’s commitment to VAR implementation, confirming that all COSAFA tournaments in 2024 will feature VAR.

“For this year 2025, all our tournaments in COSAFA will be done with VAR,” he said.

“Zambia is the first country in the Central, East and Southern zones to get the proper VAR project role out and we are going to be with the referees (in Lusaka) for the next five days where we anticipate every referee will do a minimum of 25 hours training.

“For a referee to be certified, they  have to be trained and go through a minimum of 25 hours.”

Tangawarima said the training programme is vital in preparing and equipping Zambian referees as the Zambian Super League gears up to introduce VAR in the upcoming season.

“Zambia intends to introduce VAR in the league in the coming seasons and for them to be able to do that, we have to train as many referees as possible.

“We have 40 Super League referees who will be trained and certified at this groundbreaking VAR proper package.

“We started a pilot project for the (2023 Absa) Cup final of the Zambian game. We didn’t use Zambian referees because we didn’t have VAR-certified referees,” explained Tangawarima.

FAZ President Andrew Kamanga, who officiated at the opening ceremony, thanked COSAFA for bringing the initiative to Zambia.

“Please deliver this message to the COSAFA Executive that we are indeed very grateful that you have been able to come and support us with this initiative.

“There can be no successful implementation of VAR without trained personnel. This exercise is critical in ensuring that we are ready for the undertaking that we have signed up,” Kamanga said.

“We are already doing a lot of work in our game to incorporate technology as witnessed by the recent handover of Global Tracking System equipment for all our Super League teams for both men and women.

“All these developments are embedded in our 10-year strategic plan that we are calling Vision 2030.”

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