adminEllina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
THE World Navi Northern Region Division One soccer league leadership have expressed satisfaction with the way the competition has been progressing as they enter Week 12 of the championship campaign today.Speaking to The Saturday Herald, Northern Region secretary-general, Sweeney Mushonga, said they have had some challenges but have managed to keep everything under control.
“I think it’s been good but it has not been a walk in the park. We have had a couple of challenges but not anything that we have not managed to solve. We have had a bit of crowd trouble in matches involving Chegutu Pirates. We had to summon Chegutu Pirates because of misconduct of their supporters and they have had to play their matches in Chakari.
“We have had Starbill, also in terms of crowd trouble, those are isolated cases and Seven Flames as well but we have met with their executive members. We agreed on the correct conduct and on the way forward. Besides those incidents it’s been good,” said Mushonga.
Mushonga said they have had some positives as they try to improve the league and had a successful workshop with the coaches in April.
“We had a good time when we met with the club coaches, it was more like a refresher course conducted by Takaendesa Jongwe. It proved to be successful, we had good support and they even said they would want a similar programme on a regular basis. So we are working something for August. We are looking at ways to engage the medical teams on how best we can also come up with a programme to equip them with knowledge on how best to assist the players,” said Mushonga.
So far all teams have managed to fulfil their fixtures despite financial challenges being faced by some of the clubs.
Mushonga said they were happy with the level of competition and commitment from the clubs and players.
He added that the introduction of the Soccer Star of the Year award has been an inspiration to many players, increasing the level of competition.
“I would want to believe that the game has been very competitive. This can be seen by the points and number of scores to date. All games have been fulfilled. I believe that the quality is going up.
“We have seen a lot of commitment from players, a lot of enthusiasm from the players because of the World Navi Soccer Star of the Year Award. Based on that a number of players are coming in week in week out named as outstanding players.
“Even the level of refereeing, there has been an improvement. We are seeing young referees coming in and in terms of complains we haven’t received much compared to the same time last year. Generally they are very few.
“What we do is on regular basis is we file all our complaints with the referee’s commission so that when they do their workshops they can look into that and we would want to believe that they have been looking into those concerned areas,” said Mushonga.
The Northern Region league secured a sponsorship deal with a Japanese company, World Navi, early this year where they will get three cars and playing kits for all the teams.
And Mushonga said they will deliver their promise to the clubs in their effort to take the league to another level.
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