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Farirai Machivenyika
Senior Reporter
PREMIER Soccer League chairman Farai Jere has urged Parliament to urgently enact a law governing sport in the country including infrastructure especially stadia for the country’s most popular sport, football.
Jere, who is also the owner of one of the country’s biggest football clubs CAPS United and a Member of Parliament for Murehwa West, said this in the National Assembly while debating the State of the Nation Address delivered by President Mnangagwa during the official opening of the 10th Parliament last month.
He bemoaned the absence of stadiums to host international football matches in the country and called for the promulgation of a sports law that will address some of these deficiencies.
“One thing I would like to say to this honourable House is that laws are very critical as they are the tools of development,” he said.
“One Bill that I am going to look at is the Sports Bill, I have a lot of interest in Sport and it is sad that we don’t have a stadium to host (international football) matches. “In his speech, the President emphasised the importance of sports and of it is the maintenance of health. It’s something that I would want as honourable MPs to look at quickly and put it into law so that we can have at least one stadium meeting international standards.”
He added that if people are engaged in sport, they were unlikely to engage in anti-social activities like drug abuse.
“If people are occupied in sport they can forget about other things around them, we can spend a day talking about a match that happened in 2006, so sport is one thing that can occupy people’s minds and improve both physical and mental health,” Jere said.
Apart from a law to promote sport, he also called for a law to promote youth empowerment and address the scourge of drugs and alcohol abuse.
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