Legendary athlete Samuel Matete has confirmed that he is set to contest for the role of vice-president at the upcoming Zambia Athletics Association (ZAA) elections.
Matete disclosed this morning that he has successfully filed his nomination for the vice-president role ahead of the ZAA elections scheduled for March 22, 2025.
“I’ve been looking forward to the ZAA elections, and I have filed my nomination. I am really looking forward to being part of this election,” Matete told ZNBC’s Radio 4 in an interview.
The Atlanta 1996 Olympics silver medalist revealed that he deliberately opted to vie for the vice-president role as he also intends to maintain his current involvement in the private development of athletics.
“For now, I have opted to go for vice-president because strategically, I also want to be involved in the development of athletics. As you know, I am a sports coordinator and very much involved in the athletics private sector,” he said.
Matete believes that Zambian athletics has taken a downward path and will need to be decentralized and spread across all the provinces in the country.
“We believe that athletics has suffered in terms of development in all 10 provinces, and we all know that athletics is not just ZAA. We need to cast a wider net, and we can only do that in the provinces,” he said.
In 2020, Matete contested and lost his bid to become president of ZAA to incumbent and long-serving Elias Mpondela, who was re-elected following a landslide victory.
