Ray of hope for women’s soccer

Harare Bureau

THERE is a ray of hope for the revamping of women’s football in Zimbabwe after FIFA lifted the country’s suspension from international football.

A four-member normalisation committee was unveiled yesterday, with former Zimbabwe women’s team captain and coach Rosemary Mugadza also part of the interim leadership, to run the affairs at 53 Livingstone Avenue for the next one year.

Zimbabwe had been suspended from the international game since February, 2022 and the women’s teams suffered the agony of being excluded from a number of regional and international competitions.

Advisor to COSAFA president Ralph Nkomo said they would want to see Zimbabwean women’s teams back in the game and are looking at the possibility of hosting an Under-20 women’s football tournament in the country as part of the restoration.

“As COSAFA, we see a great need for ladies’ football especially Zimbabwe ladies football to come back to the fore. So we are currently discussing and we will discuss with the relevant parties, the Ministry and SRC to hold a tournament here in the next couple of months for maybe the ladies Under-20,” said Nkomo.

FIFA head of development programs in Africa Solomon Mudege said while Zimbabwe will miss out on current competitions whose draw have already been conducted, there are opportunities for other international tournaments in the future.

“Regarding the participation in current competitions as you are aware those draws have been already been done so it would not be possible to add a Zimbabwean team.

“However, there are opportunities of adding Zimbabwe national teams into other international tournaments such as which are being mentioned by COSAFA.

“COSAFA remains our most immediate entry into international football. We also support COSAFA in staging these tournaments, so that is what will be done.”

Mudege pointed out the need to relook at how women’s football is run in the country and emphasised the need for professionalism having noticed some unprofessional incidents when he attended some of the women’s league matches.

“But before we look internationally we need to change things locally…We need to be more professional in how we do it.
“Unprofessional comes from the fact that ZIFA doesn’t currently have a women’s football officer or anyone to run women’s football, that should change and the normalisation committee is aware of that. But one person can’t change it, so that’s part of the restructuring that we need to do.

“There are lots of programmes that FIFA does. There are even Zimbabwean nationals who go to, Gambia, Uganda to train in women’s football, why can’t they work here? So these are the things we are looking into.

“I think there was a simple lack of investment into women’s football but that needs to change.
“We have also engaged the Footballers Union of Zimbabwe for being quite a vocal advocate for women’s football, we need to find a way in order to look after the female players in a much better way,” Mudege said.

During the 17 months of football isolation, the Mighty Warriors missed out on the COSAFA Women’s Championship last year while Black Rhinos and Herentals missed the CAF Women’s Champions League.

Rhinos made history in 2021 when they took part in the inaugural CAF Champions League qualifier which was played as the zonal COSAFA Women’s regional qualifier in Durban. They reached the final of the inaugural competition.

But they could not return for the second edition last year due to Zimbabwe’s suspension from all international competitions by FIFA.

The re-admission of Zimbabwe by FIFA comes after the draw for the TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations Morocco 2024 Qualifiers was conducted last week, and the Mighty Warriors have to wait a bit longer for their participation.

The qualifiers are set for August this year. ZIFA have over the years been accused of neglecting women’s football in the country.

But with the appointment of the normalisation committee whose duties include restructuring the ZIFA administration, there is hope that it will also lead to a positive change and approach towards women’s football.