Chronicle Editor
Innocent Kurira
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FOOTBALL is one sport that is rooted in changing lives for the better.
The greatest players of the sport grew up in ghettos and slums of this world and have testimonies of being able to eke a living through their talent and prowess on the ball.
Aside from players, there are a handful of people who came out from the same environs and made it big, out of football.
The first in picture are the match officials.
Yes, the officials who handle the game.
Of these, so many of the sports’ followers would think of males being the blowers of the whistle or running down the halfway of the football pitch with a flag in hand.
In recent years, women are fast bending the fold and having an interest in officiating matches.
Following what the world’s football governing body, Fifa, has done in empowering women in the game, a wonder of a referee has come out of Plumtree, in Matabeleland South.
The border town, only common for its economic activity and societal connectivity with Botswana on the west end of the country, has a hidden gem of a young talented lady, who exudes a nerdy vein of environmental science and football.
Somehow, you read it well. A scientist with so much love for football.
Saturday Chronicle Sport met up with 20-year-old football referee, Sibongumusa Luphahla based in the heart of the BuKalanga community of Plumtree.
Luphahla, is a young female referee, so known in the lowest rungs of local football in the small town of Plumtree. At her age, she has broken the perception that football is a men’s sport.
She is a young woman with a passion, no age mate can match.
At just 20, she is determined not only to be a referee, but to put an ace in a class as an environmental scientist, at the prestigious National University of Science and Technology (Nust).
Luphahla has 13 A-level points to her sleeve, off the 2022 Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (Zimsec) examinations. However, she has a crisis.
She is one of the young referees, possibly the only of her fold, but short of support.
Hers is a story told and deserves to be retold.
Luphahla has been accepted at Nust. Proud she is, but she has no money to pay her fees, and she admits all is not well.
Not many young women from Mat South have a cut to this. Luphahla’s story is one inspirational and brings hope to many who come from the not privileged communities.
Picture this, from a town as small as Plumtree to have a 20-year-old female football referee. There she is.
From her first passion to want to be a football player, she fell in love with officiating.
A call she has stuck to.
Luphahla however, has a dream of becoming an environmental scientist.
She has already enrolled with Nust and is due to start classes in August.
Already granted to the institution, with 13 points to her name, she is looking for a financial leap. She needs assistance.
In the meantime, Luphahla has taken football officiating as a pastime or at least that was the initial plan. Having done a referees course in league 2020, she now officiates in the Zifa Division Two league.
“I fell in love with football through the influence of my brothers. I would go and watch them play until a time l also decided to try and play. After I finished, my teacher Johannes Ndlovu was the one who encouraged me to take up a refereeing course. Little did I know I was to enjoy doing this and right now my dream is to officiate at the World Cup.
“After the realisation that there are a few females who are into officiating I got extra motivation to get into football officiating. Though my dream is to work in health facilities I feel I can still pursue both. As it is I am officiating in Division Two football and the experience has been quite awesome,” said Luphahla
Luphahla is a rare breed of young women, indeed in their numbers, who have made a commitment to serve the game of football. She believes the same.
“My life ambition is to see myself and other ladies being at the top levels of football refereeing. I am at a point where I advise fellow women to follow their dreams,” she said.
Online Reporter