THE national junior men volleyball team that was scheduled to take part in the Junior World Championships qualifiers in Tunis, Tunisia, will have to wait a little longer to compete in international events after the trip was cancelled due to lack of funds. The championships are starting today and will end on March 10 with countries from across the continent taking part.

Zimbabwe automatically qualified for the event when the Zone Six championships, which acted as qualifiers, were cancelled after most of the member countries failed to confirm their participation.

That left only three countries - South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi - as the contenders.

ZVA president, Fredrick Ndlovu, said they could not send the team because of financial constraints as they failed to raise the required US$40 000 for the trip.

Ndlovu said they had given preference to the beach volleyball teams that were in Namibia over the weekend as their trip did not require a lot of money.

The national association were also hoping to send a girls' team for the Youth Girls championship qualifiers set to run between next month and April in Egypt.

But, with the latest developments, it remains to be seen if they will be able to field a team in the competition.

However, Ndlovu remains optimistic saying they are still negotiating with some potential sponsors for the forthcoming events.

"What we are doing is we have not totally cancelled all the trips. We are still engaged with a number of our sponsors and we have not really finished negotiations," said Ndlovu.

The ZVA president said the other challenge was that a a new executive had just come into office and they still have some issues to deal with such as the appointment of coaches and various commissions within the association and it has affected some of the events.

Meanwhile, the ZVA president hailed the beach volleyball teams that qualified for the Youth and Junior African championships at the weekend in Namibia where they were taking part in the Zonal qualifiers.

"It's great in the sense that this is the first time they have gone out like that and achieved this, which shows that with more effort and resources they can do more.

"It's an encouragement for all of us and it gives us a lot of hope, especially given they are juniors and they have a long way to go," said Ndlovu.

The top four teams from the African championships will represent the continent at the World championships to be held later this year.