Online Reporter
Tadious Manyepo
Zimpapers Sports Hub
CHINESE Ambassador to Zimbabwe Zhou Ding has been blown away by the amount of sporting talent that this country possesses across different sport codes, especially football.
He knows former Warriors forward Nyasha Mushekwi, who has dazzled the Chinese Super League for close to a decade now, and is also aware of other Zimbabwean stars dotted across the globe.
And yesterday the envoy challenged Jadel Football Academy players to aim high during an Open House session where he interacted with them at the Chinese Embassy, ahead of their departure to the Asian country this evening.
The nursery’s U-13 and U-12 teams are scheduled to participate in two youth competitions in Thaiwoo and Beijing this month and in August respectively.
The nine-day Thaiwoo Cup, which draws youth teams from across the world takes part from July 23.
The acclaimed Zimbabwean grassroots project will then defend their 100-Teams Cup pencilled for Beijing from August 8 to 16.
They won this tournament last year which had close to 150 clubs from all over the world taking part.
And Zhou yesterday presided over a luncheon put together for the team where he said the 45-year-long partnership between Zimbabwe and China is growing from strength to strength with sport as one of its major pillars.
“As I just mentioned, the people of Zimbabwe are very talented and very open minded. Zimbabwe has a very strong sports sector. You have many famous athletes known worldwide,” said Ding.
“I know a very famous footballer playing in the Chinese Super League. He’s very, very famous and enjoys friendship from Chinese people. So hopefully, in the future, we support more athletes to work and play in China.
“I urge you to go and enjoy in China, play well and be able to learn new experiences. This is sport and tourism combined and I am very happy. I would like to salute Jadel Academy founder Walter Musanhu for championing all this.”
Musanhu, who has a dream to mould the next generation of Warriors with one eye at qualifying for the 2034 World Cup, said: “I think what makes us different is we are always out there, globally, travelling to China. It’s not just China. We have kids going to Germany. We have kids going to Spain coming from this project. So, you know, they want to be professional.
“So we are saying the future again, because they will not check when it comes to, when you want to be signed abroad. They are already exposed to the environment.
“So I think our kids, that’s what is special about our kids. And talking about the future, I think we have our project, the 2034 World Cup project.
“Look, it speaks for itself that we have, at least when we started, it was almost a 12-year plan, which tend to be now. The results of what we are seeing, we are saying that this is it. This is the future of Zimbabwean football. As you are aware, we have kids from Bulawayo, Mutare and everywhere. We have kids coming from Scottland Academy, so we are targeting and working with all children.
“It will be the first time for others to travel and the other kids are going for the second time. We hope to fly the country’s flag high.”
