adminThe deal will be unveiled at Alex Sports Club in the capital tomorrow at 2pm and SCUZ have invited Media, Information and Publicity Minister, Webster Shamu, to be the guest of honour.
Under the partnership, SCUZ members, together with their wives and two children under the age of 18, will be able to get free consultation and treatment at certain medical centres identified by Chonzi.
The deal will run for an initial six-month period with the SCUZ leadership confident that they would have raised enough money by then to then put their members under medical aid cover.
SCUZ members in Harare and Bulawayo will benefit from this deal and coaches in other areas will then be absorbed into the medical aid fund to be launched by the organisation, with the help of Chonzi, once the six months elapse.
The SCUZ leadership, who have been on an aggressive drive to boost their membership numbers, staged a successful challenge match between the Northern Region and Southern Region coaches at Luveve in
Bulawayo on Saturday.
A subsequent meeting held after the match elected a national interim executive for the organisation which will run SCUZ for two years, establishing provincial structures, looking for sponsors and preparing for elections for a substantive leadership.
Moses Chunga, who has been the driving force behind SCUZ and scored a sensational coup for the organisation by successfully mediating in the row between Calisto Pasuwa and the Dynamos leadership, was retained as the interim national president.
Nesbert Saruchera is the first national vice-president while Amin Soma-Phiri is the second vice-president.
Newsome Mutema was retained as national secretary-general with Marko Dube coming in as national treasurer and Peter Manoti is the national organising secretary.
The committee members are Luke Masomere, Willard Mashinkila-Khumalo and Adam Ndlovu.
SCUZ will also have an advisory board that will help the national leadership and one of the posts, on that board, has already been reserved for legendary football star Peter Ndlovu.
Chunga, flanked by Mutema, yesterday said their partnership with Chonzi will open a new chapter for SCUZ.
“From the very beginning we were clear that we are here to look at the welfare of coaches because we believed there wasn’t an organisation that was attending to that,” said Chunga.
“Step by step we are getting it right and on Wednesday we are launching a medical partnership with Doctor Chonzi that will help our members significantly, for free of charge, for a period of about six months.
“Once you have a labour body that takes care of its members’ medical needs then you know you are starting from a very strong position because life is what matters more than anything else.
“We are grateful that Doctor Chonzi has understood our vision and wants to help us and we are also confident that with time we will also have enough in our coffers to finance medical aid cover for our members.
“Right now the deal we are unveiling covers the member, his wife and two kids below the age of 18 and, obviously, with time, we will see how we can incorporate more family members but this is a good start.”
Chunga also paid tribute to the Bulawayo coaches who responded to the call for a challenge match and an indaba in numbers and turned the occasion into a grand festival.
“Our counterparts in Bulawayo are a group of amazing people and I want to say to them, thank you very much for everything that they did at the weekend,” said Chunga.
“I met some guys that I had last seen 12 to 15 years ago and, with the kind of support and oneness that we saw in Bulawayo, we can only get stronger as Zimbabwean football coaches. United we stand.
“This coming weekend we are going to Mutare for another challenge match and we will also use that occasion to meet with coaches in Manicaland and after that we will be in Masvingo and then Chinhoyi,” he said.
Online Reporter