Football - Zimbabwean football clubs, eager to break into the big league of the sport in Africa, are breaking with tradition and searching for talent on the wider African continent.

Dynamos, the country's biggest club and Africa's sixth largest, said Monday it was in talks to sign Cameroonian defender Joel Jacques Tayou.

The former Cotonsport Garoua player is already in Zimbabwe, and said he was certain he would play for Dynamos this year.

"It is my dream to play for Dynamos and I came here to Zimbabwe as a free agent with the aim of playing for this team and I am hopeful that things will work out well," he said.

Dynamos is seeking to strengthen its squad ahead of its safari in the African Champions league later in the year.

Tayou's arrival in Zimbabwe follows that of two Ghanaian players who joined Dynamos' bitter domestic rival, CAPS United, last week.

The club, which routinely competes in the African Champions league, finished third last year, and said it was strengthening its squad to return to either first or second position in order to qualify for the continental competition.

With all trading in Zimbabwe now in foreign currency, after the authorities scrapped the local dollar last year, working or doing business in Zimbabwe has become attractive.

In the last few years, all talented Zimbabwean sportspersons, particularly football players, left the country at the earliest opportunity because of poor pay and working conditions.

"It means a lot for our football that we now have players who can come from Cameroon to try their luck here," Job Sikhala, a former Member of Parliament who helped bring Tayou to Zimbabwe, said.

By PANA