admin
Allen Khumalo, Sports Reporter
THE Bantu Academy has announced plans to streamline its operations in order to improve efficiency and better serve its participants.
According to a statement issued by the academy founder and chief executive officer Methembe Ndlovu, the academy will from the beginning of 2019 shift focus to its team that competes in the Bulawayo Province Division Two League.
Ndlovu said some players under the age of 18 will be re-assigned and promoted to its Division Two side while the Under-18, Under-16 and Under-14s will be under new management.
“We realised not every youth player is going to be a professional footballer and our objective is to help players prepare for lives in and outside football. We will be more focused on each individual participant moving forward and I’m happy to work with our Division Two players next season,” said Ndlovu.
He said they were in the process of engaging several interested parties to take over the juniors and a final decision will be made before the year ends.
“We are in discussions with several interested parties to take over the management of the junior players, but I’m not at liberty to mention the names because we have not finalised those talks yet. We are going to make a final decision before the end of the year. We will make that choice putting into consideration the interests of our players, some of whom we have been with for a long time,” he said.
Ndlovu, who believes in nurturing talent at grassroots level, said they are not abandoning their vision of developing young footballers.
“Contrary, we are intensifying our focus and we will continue to be involved with them (players) even though we won’t be doing the operations ourselves. We are increasing our focus on developing younger players so that when they reach 22 years of age they can transition to their careers in football or any other career,” he said.
Online Reporter