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Tadious Manyepo-Zimpapers Sports Hub
ONE of the major stakeholders in the local sport ecosystem, the Sports Leaders Institute of Zimbabwe feel that long-term athlete development should dominate football discourse at any level.
In an interview with Zimpapers Sports yesterday, SLIZ president Russel Maradza Mhiribidi said overlooking the systematic long-term development has for long been Zimbabwe’s undoing at the international level.
Mhiribidi said the country needs a deliberate plan to ensure that budding footballers get the requisite exposure as dictated by modern sports science.
He reckoned that the new ZIFA leadership to be voted in office on January 25 should carry this trait on top of their minds.
“The kind of leadership that our football needs to progress is those who are development-oriented. We are talking about people who can champion that cause. Without a firm foundation, our football will not prosper.
“We want candidates who have development at heart, candidates that understand everything football and are results-driven.
“We want candidates that understand long-term athlete development over and above all the other facets. There can never be proper development without taking long-term athlete development into cognisance,” said Mhiribidi.
“The issue where our football has been a term sport should be a thing of the past because you get certain children losing a chance to develop their football skills because if their schools are knocked out in the zonal phase of the competition, that means they would have done only three weeks of football training.
“Yet long-term athlete development dictates that athletes in any sport should have at least 10 000 hours of interaction with equipment to become properly developed.
“We want leadership that can convince the powers that be, that is NAPH and NASH, to let the children play football throughout the year.” SLIZ’s position resonates well with one of the candidates seeking an executive member post in the upcoming election — Tafadzwa Benza.
The Herentals chairman reckons that he will use his connections in the education system and be able to convince both Naph and Nash to let schools play football all year round. Being the chief operating officer for Herentals Group of Schools and Colleges, Benza has since introduced that philosophy across all the 60-plus Herentals centres across the country.
The youthful administrator also superintends over the Herentals Academy, where excelling footballers from the centres are absorbed, and makes sure they have enough time in training.
“Football ought to be played throughout the year right from the primary school level. This game can never be a termly thing if we intend to become a competitive country internationally.
“Look, sports science recommends that a young footballer coming up should be afforded not less than 10 000 hours of training. That’s massive, and we can never attain that if we expose our learners to proper training for just 10 weeks of the year.
“I feel that I am well-placed to talk to the authorities, and as soon as I am elected into office, I will make sure that football is played all year round as a matter of priority,” said Benza.
“Zimbabwe has enough talent, but we miss the whole point right at the foundational stage, where we restrict football to only a single term at schools. They will never fully exploit their potential because they would not have been exposed to the scientifically recommended way of doing things.
“This is what I stand for, and we have already introduced the all-year-round phenomenon at the Herentals Group. There is no single term dedicated to football only. Every term, the schools will be playing football, and they will be competing against each other as well.”
Benza is widely seen as one of the ideal candidates who should get a slot on the six-member board, which is being contested for by as many as 39 hopefuls.
Besides the long-term athlete development goal, Benza has also promised to prioritise equal pay between male and female footballers at the national team level as well as general inclusivity in the sport.
Online Reporter