Katsande dismisses Zimbabwe Afcon protest

Katsande told Harare news that the team was focused on their 2017 Afcon Group B clash with Senegal on Thursday night.

The Zimbabwean national team didn’t train on Tuesday after they held a 90-minute workout on Monday, which led to speculation that the players were protesting over bonuses.

“We never said we are not going to train, but it was recovery day because we played on Sunday night, and last night the guys who were on the bench played a friendly match to keep the fitness levels high, and then the coach decided to give the whole day off and train at night, and so we are training tonight [last night],’’ said Katsande.

Team manager Sharrif Mussa broke down the training schedule given to him by coach Callisto Pasuwa.

“My schedule did not have a training session [in the morning], but what I got was an instruction from the HOD [Omega Sibanda] to bring my schedule of payments because they wanted to pay a draw bonus for the players for the game against Algeria, and all this was done without any dispute,’’ Mussa said.