daniel chigunwe
Eddie Chikamhi Senior Sports Reporter
THREE-TIME Zimbabwean football champions FC Platinum have put in motion plans to establish a women’s football team in line with the revised CAF Club Licensing rules.
The Zvishavane-based outfit conducted three-day football trials that ended yesterday in the efforts to lay the foundation of the new football project.
The team will be known as Platinum Royals FC.
With the formation of the Platinum Royals FC, the Zvishavane side are looking to promote the development of the girl child as well as comply with the CAF regulations for participation in the interclub competitions.
Last year, CAF announced that teams with no women’s sides will not be allowed to participate in the men’s continental club competitions from the 2022-2023 season.
This could have presented a serious challenge for the platinum miners, who represented Zimbabwe in the last five editions of the CAF Champions League.
FC Platinum have already won the right to represent the country in the upcoming CAF interclub competitions after bagging the Chibuku Super Cup recently.
Sadly, most of the domestic Premiership clubs do not have women’s teams. The few women’s teams owned by the Premiership clubs include Highlanders Royals, Black Rhinos Queens, Harare City Queens, Ngezi Scorpion Queens and Yadah Queens.
Bulawayo Chiefs recently announced they were also forming a women’s football team to be led by head coach Evans Netha, with ex-Mighty Warriors defender Nobuhle Majika as assistant coach.
Giants Dynamos and CAPS United are among those clubs that are yet to have women’s football teams and could find it difficult to compete in Africa if they win the tickets to represent Zimbabwe.
CAF have taken a serious approach towards women’s football development.
The organisation’s Club Licensing senior manager, Muhammad Sidat, last year announced that clubs will only be licensed to play in the Champions League, if they have a women’s team, in their ranks, beginning this coming season.
This came as CAF president Patrice Motsepe, who was elevated to Confederation of African Football last year, pledged to promote and uplift women in football and marked that as the key feature of his tenure.
“We want women’s football to be significantly growing and progressing in the period of my presidency.
“What excites me is what we can potentially do. We have 280-million young Africans on this continent between the ages of 15 to 24. Football has a unique role to play in providing opportunities to these youth.
“Someone was saying to me, we could actually have an African nation winning the FIFA Women’s World Cup before we have a male team doing so,” he said.
The rush has since begun on the continent for clubs to form women’s teams in line with the regulations and the development thrust taken by the current leadership.
Online Reporter