The Sunday News
Mandla Ncube, Sports Reporter
The Zifa Bulawayo province launched its provincial junior development league on Tuesday.
The league program which is being rolled out across the country’s 10 provinces will feature Under-15 teams bankrolled by Zifa.
Running under the auspices of Zifa, the Youth Development Affairs Committee will appoint a Local Organising Committee which will be solely responsible for running the Under-15 league.
Andrew Tapela, the Zifa Southern Region chairman, who sits on the Youth Affairs and Development Committee at national level said the program will enable the Association to keep detailed player profiles and monitor player development.
“If we look at our national Under-17 you get a lot of players featuring in the national team but when you trace their background to see which teams were they playing for, you wouldn’t find their names and this is exactly what the Youth Development Committee wants to address to say we must therefore create a database for all our players in the provincial leagues,” said Tapela.
Despite Bulawayo already having vibrant junior league structures in place, Tapela reckons this is an opportunity clubs must ride on to cut their expenses.
“We are seeing an opportunity where teams are going to like the idea, here is a program that says hire the equipment but here is the money to cater for that,” Tapela said.
The league which is expected to commence next month will consist of 20 teams from across the Bulawayo Metropolitan area.
