Junior development main focus at Zifa indaba

Sports Reporter
JUNIOR development took centre stage at the Zifa Bulawayo Metropolitan Province’s first interactive meeting held on Friday at the Southern Region offices in Bulawayo. The meeting started with a review of Bulawayo Metropolitan Province’s performance at last month’s Zimbabwe National Youth Games held in Masvingo where they finished second to the hosts. Agent Sawu coached the Bulawayo team.

Mkhululi Mthunzi, responsible for the junior league desk in Bulawayo, said lack of resources had affected their programmes in pursuit of gold.
“Bulawayo remains the stronghold in terms of junior development in the country as evidenced by our performance at the Zimbabwe National Youth Games.

However, the problem that we have been having in the past is that of lack of resources. You find the team preparing for the Games using four balls for their sessions which are not enough for the whole group. The other challenge is that of transport money for the players so that they can attend training sessions,” said Mthunzi.

The Zifa Southern Region chairman Musa Mandaza said they had availed balls to Bulawayo for use next year through a programme that they run with Orap where they are distributing 11,000 balls in the region.

Former Bulawayo Metropolitan Province football coach Amini Soma-Phiri noted that the City of Kings community shied away from supporting youngsters competing at the Games.

“The problem with the Bulawayo community is that they don’t support the grassroots and only want to be associated with the team when it reaches the final. But these youngsters need support right from preparatory stages up until the time that they play in the Games. Little things like uniforms, tracksuits and even bottled water inspire kids.

“You find that when there is no businessman with interest in the provincial team, some boys tend to miss out because their bus fare is not catered for. I remember when I was still coaching the provincial team in 2005 the now Zifa vice-president Omega Sibanda gave some of the boys who belonged to FC Windermere transport money to enable them to come to training. He was forking out money from his pocket supporting the team that had the likes of Milton Ncube among others but we are not seeing that happening now from other stakeholders,” said Soma-Phiri.

Tumediso “Drogba” Mokoena, the New West FC director and Zifa Southern Region board member, proposed that they levy affiliates, including Premiership teams from the region.

“Zifa is found wanting in terms of supporting the National Youth Games’ cause and what I think should be done is to have a budget for our teams. Let’s levy the clubs because in the long run they benefit from these players that would have participated at the Zimbabwe National Youth Games,” said Mokoena.
The New West FC benefactor also raised the issue of having qualified junior coaches taking charge of provincial teams.

“I believe that the best way for Bulawayo to do well at national competitions is to have coaches with vast experience with the juniors. We need to have people who understand these youngsters. Coaching juniors is not the same as mentoring mature players, you need someone the kids can relate to and who knows about the kids that he coaches,” Mokoena said.

It was agreed at the meeting that the Zifa Bulawayo Metropolitan Province should consider having its own “high performance committee” made up of experienced junior coaches that will monitor the progress of players in the junior league and advise the provincial coach.