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Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
BASKETBALL Union of Zimbabwe (Buz) president Joe Mujuru says the training of coaches and referees at provincial and district levels will be a priority this year.
Mujuru says taking the game to communities would help rekindle the game’s long-lost spark in the country.
“We want to go province by province training coaches and in some places, we intend to even go into districts. We need to build a base in terms of our technical understanding of the game in the country by training our coaches and referees so that our players can excel at the highest level,” said Mujuru.
He said there were a lot of international clinics lined-up, beginning with an instructors’ course next month.
This is a zonal initiative that will take place in South Africa.
“When we have more instructors it means we can now train more coaches. Having our own instructors is also cheaper as we do not have to go to east and west Africa in search of an instructor to conduct a course in Zimbabwe. We have the Fiba Level 1 and Level 2 coaching courses in April but have not yet decided whether we will have it in Bulawayo or Harare. We will also have a referee’s course mid-year,” said Mujuru.
Buz presently has three international referees and two professional Fiba delegates and only Angola has more.
Mujuru, who also doubles up as Fiba Africa Zone 6 head of technical and competitions, revealed that a hectic schedule was in store in terms of competitions.
“This is a jam-packed year in terms of competitions. We have the Afro-Basket International tournament for senior men to be hosted by Zimbabwe this month. We are still waiting for communication from Fiba to confirm if the competition will go ahead as planned. We are yet to decide whether it will happen in Bulawayo or Harare. We are also preparing for competitions like the inter-provincial competitions in Harare next month and the national club championships in Bulawayo in May,” said Mujuru.
He said on the international front, there was the Under-18 Afro-Basketball qualifiers in June, 3X3 African Championship final in September as well as the BAL club championships in October.
The AUSC Under-16 games in Lesotho will take place in December. – @innocentskizoe
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