Zim hopes for 2010 benefits

Zimbabwe's government says hosting the recent Cosafa Senior Challenge was worthwhile, despite the US$1m cost of sponsoring the competition.

The southern African regional championship was the biggest football tournament ever staged in Zimbabwe, with 13 teams participating and the hosts beating Zambia 3-1 in the final.

Some ministers in the country's unity government felt that Zimbabwe could not afford to use the money to run a football tournament.

But the State decided to come in as hosts of the Southern African championship, with the aim of rebranding the country's image.

"It might be the euphoria of having won, but I can't see anywhere where we went wrong," Sylvester Maunganidze, the head of a government taskforce on sport, tourism and image, said.

He said that after hosting the Cosafa tournament, Zimbabwe has high hopes that teams will be attracted to prepare in the country ahead of the 2010 World Cup in neighbouring South Africa.

He also thought that fans would visit whilst they were in southern Africa.

"This was our World Cup. We have tested our systems, we are ready," he said, speaking on national television.

"We expect close to a quarter of a million people to come to Zimbabwe, we will be able to host them."

However, while the competition was shown on television across Africa, the country still has a lot of marketing to do in Europe and elsewhere if it is to stand a chance of benefitting from the World Cup.

"They need to build on it now," Cosafa President Suketu Patel told BBC Sport.

"We'll be producing a promotional video of the tournament and giving it to Zimbabwe to send it out to countries that might use Zimbabwe as a base ahead of the World Cup.

"The tournament itself has proved that Zimbabwe is an up-and-running country - there's a lot of misunderstanding about the situation in Zimbabwe.

"I must say that as Cosafa we found no shortcomings in what was a very successful tournament here."

But with continuing problems such as paying civil servants and funding of areas such as health and education, it remains to be seen whether Zimbabwe's million-dollar gamble pays off.

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