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Simba Jemwa, Sports Reporter
THE recently appointed Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) Technical Development Committee member and former Highlanders chairman, Kenneth Mhlophe is pushing for the reinstatement of the Zimbabwe Junior Football Association (ZJA).
The ZJA was ousted from the Zifa council by the Cuthbert Dube-led board after several run-ins between the two bodies and replaced with National Association for Primary Schools Heads (Naph) and the National Association of Secondary School Heads (Nash), a development which resulted in the lack of organised structures for junior football teams countrywide.
Mhlophe, who has been driving development in the region for years through sponsorship of Highlanders’ development sides and a one-time sponsor of awards in the Southern Region Division One League through his security company, Nokel Security told this publication that the reinstatement of the ZJA is one of his priorities as chairman of the technical development committee.
“At the moment my committee is focused on the upcoming coaching courses. But immediately after that, I am pursuing the reintegration of the Zimbabwe Junior Football Association into the Zifa family. For over 12 years, this constituency has not been ably represented and this has affected football development nationally.
“We now have a scenario where Zifa cannot effectively police junior development in the country and this cannot be allowed to continue,” Mhlophe told Sunday News Sport.
“Without junior football, there is no football! We have no Zifa junior football. No Zifa junior football office. And no junior football in the Zifa Assembly. The national junior teams are no longer competing,” he declared.
“Provincial select sides were also chosen and competed against each which gave national junior team coaches an idea of what was available countrywide. Now we are forced to pick national teams from schools. But mind you, schools are very much part of football development, but we also need the junior structures because they play a lot more football across the year than they do at school alone.”
Mhlophe said his aim is to resuscitate junior football which used the old grounds and the famous old “area zones” like Barbourfields Stadium’s outside grounds for their matches.
He added that the country has about 70 coaches who hold Caf A badges but the Premier Soccer League only has 18 clubs to employ all of them.
“We have so many Caf A coaches in the country who are presently unemployed, but if we had a vibrant junior league, they could very well be working there and imparting all the football knowledge they have picked up to the development of the local game,” he said.
“As the technical development committee, we want to re-establish active junior national teams from under-13 to under-23. This is the only way we can keep track of the young players we have in abundance in the country,” Mhlophe said.
Mhlophe also said his committee will also be looking into regularising all the football academies in the country as a matter of urgency.
Mhlophe was appointed by the Zifa board to chair the technical committee in July and among his terms of reference is working and supporting the technical director, deliberating on technical matters of the national team appointments and shortlisting potential candidates that shall be recommended to the board for final decisions, review performance of all national team coaches on behalf of the board for recommendations, and provide guidance to all technical committees through the office of the technical director.
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