JADEL ACADEMY OFF TO CHINA

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 sports codes.

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 here at home.

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 U13 and U12 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 Zimbabwean grassroots project will then defend their 100-Teams Cup pencilled for Beijing from 8-16 August.

“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 will 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 daredevil 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, traveling 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.

“I think we have our project, the 2034 World Cup project. The results of what we are seeing, we are saying that this is it. This is the future of Zimbabwean football.”