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Tadious Manyepo-Sports Reporter
BENEFACTOR Tanaka wakes up at 4am for physical training sessions everyday.
The Glen Norah-based amputee footballer does this with a group of his four friends who are into different sports, including taekwondo, basketball and volleyball.
While Tanaka has done this all his life, he has every reason to smile now.
All along Tanaka was playing street football with his closed circle of trusted friends.
Because he plays with the support of a crutch, others are not comfortable playing with him as they fear he would injure them or vice-versa.
Now 22, Tanaka lost his leg following a hit-and-run accident when he was just 10-years-old.
Yet football was always his passion and he would, despite orders from his parents not to, play street soccer.
And two years ago, word reached him that there was an amputee football team that had been formed in Ruwa, George Al-Quds.
“I celebrated a lot upon hearing the news. I knew I would make the grade in that team and finally realise my dream of playing football as an amputee,” Tanaka said.
“My leg was crushed in a hit and run accident when I was 10 years old. The culprit in not known until this day but the injury was so bad the leg had to be removed.
“Before that I was playing football for a local academy at the Glen Norah Hall.
“But years after my amputation, I found myself playing with a crutch, but with no hope whatsoever that I was going to play professional football”.
Yet Tanaka and hundreds of his colleagues, male and female, who hope to make a name playing amputee football still see that as a mere pipe dream.
Three years after joining amputee football, Tanaka and the rest of his mates are still to play in an organised league and their national team call up, on more than one occasion, has been only academic.
Founder of amputee football in Zimbabwe Robson Musarafu, who is also the association president and national team manager said amputee football is being treated as second class in this country.
“The introduction of amputee football in Zimbabwe is one of the measures that sought to implement the National Disability Policy (NDP) launched by President Mnangagwa in June 2021,” said Musarafu. “The policy aims to correct social imbalances suffered by PWDs across the nation and to make sure no person and place is left behind in the development of Zimbabwe and its people.
“When Ruwa George Al-Quds Amputee FC, the first club in Zimbabwe to be formed entirely to play amputee football, was formed in 2019, it captured the need to end the harmful practices, discrimination, marginalisation and exclusion of PWDs from participating in FIFA governed football whose rules of the game are very much against the inclusion of PWDs on the field of play.
“Many PWDs across the country welcomed the new sport code and joined the club in their hundreds.
“However, it hasn’t been easy from that time to the end of this year for Amputee Football to rise to the national grid of recognition for support and sponsorship, especially in the country.
“The mindset of the corporate world and civil society in Zimbabwe still shuns amputee football as no sponsorship came its way and players close the year 2023 on low spirit”.
In August, the national amputee team qualified to participate at the first African Para Games in Accra, Ghana in September but the team failed to travel due to inadequate preparations, training and lack of funding. They lacked even the most basic equipment like balls and kits and they were not able to go into camp.
“The team lost the Ghana opportunity because it had no money, no kits and no soccer balls. Adequate training under these circumstances are honestly impossible,” he added.
“The rights of PWDs to equal treatment through the funding of the sport designed for them has to be respected”.
The national team has also qualified to play in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers that kick off in Cairo Egypt in April next year.
But they could still miss that opportunity due to several challenges.
“The Zimbabwe Amputee Football Federation has varying challenges. Firstly, we have not renewed our affiliation to CAAF and WAFF which expire on December 31. It still owes CAAF USD200 for 2023 and the total needed for both governing bodies is USD1200 including transfer charges.
“Without the membership being in good standing, Zimbabwe will be excluded from the World Cup qualifier games and faces a ban for failing to fulfil fixtures.
“We are appealing to the corporate world, sport governing authorities and individual football lovers in Zimbabwe to chip in and save the sport”.
The team was supposed to play Senegal on December 10 this year after they had been invited by the West African country but the team failed to travel due to lack of funds.
There are no suitable pitches for amputee football in the country at the moment but Musarafu remains optimistic.
The Federation is also working on Women Amputee Football.
Should they be able to put together the women’s team, the ladies will attempt to qualify for the 2024 World Cup to be staged in Colombo in November next year.
“We have to get funding first so that we can bring isolated players into serious training. We have to establish our leagues,” he said.
“A standard Amputee Football ground measures 60m x 40m (the maximum being 70mx 60m), which is smaller than the FIFA ground. Hence Amputee Football cannot use existing facilities especially for international games.
“We need land or some of the existing grounds to establish our own Amputee Football grounds so that we do not play games on wrong grounds. We face a ban if we keep playing on potatoes fields that are bumpy and without standard markings”.
Online Reporter