State of junior football in Bulawayo debatable

By Faith Dube
THE debate on the state of junior football in Zimbabwe in general and Bulawayo in particular is a critical subject matter.
For a long time Bulawayo has been the epicentre of junior football in Zimbabwe. It is in Bulawayo where legendary footballers like the Ndlovu brothers, Madinda, Peter and Adam, Bruce Grobbelaar, Benjani Mwaruwari, Benjamin Nkonjera, Agent Sawu, Henry Mckop and a host of other talented players played their junior football and went on to become successful in their football careers.

It is in Bulawayo where you find the legendary junior football mentor, Ali “Baba” Dube — a man whose finger prints are traceable beyond our borders.

It is in Bulawayo Province where there is organised association junior football under the auspices of the Zifa Bulawayo Province Junior League with a total of 42 clubs and over 2,520 children between the ages of 12-18 years playing football from March to December every weekend.

There is a school of thought in football circles which believes that junior football is dead in Bulawayo. This argument is premised on the realisation that it is now rare to systematically trace the trajectory of players’ progression from junior to professional level. Could this summation provide enough basis to qualify the argument of the demise of junior football in Bulawayo?

With all these youngsters being involved in football action week in and week out in the junior league and during the school football calendar, what has gone so terribly wrong for some people to believe that junior football is dead?

Is junior football really dead in Bulawayo?

I have noted with deep sadness that during any football election, one of the most abused manifesto concepts and most hackneyed contents therein always touches on the subject of “revival of junior policy.”  This junior policy issue has decorated many manifestos during elections and there has been little to almost nothing that correlates with the manifesto contests on the subject matter. This has led me many a time to query if some people really understand what is meant by junior policy beyond sloganeering at football elections.

It is not unusual among some football circles to hear people say, junior football is now dead. The immediate question would logically want to understand if there was such a policy in the first place and what is it that really died.

I find the phrase, “ junior policy is dead” an overloaded abstraction that needs to be fully unpacked, explained and located in order to frame the debate in a logical and reasonable fashion. I believe it is such healthy debates that will enable our football administrators, policy makers and other related relevant interest groups to take note and relevantly frame their practice in a manner that will translate to positive development of the game of football in the country.

I believe junior football is very much alive in Bulawayo. In fact there is more activity in junior football than there was in the past.  Times have changed and naturally there must be a change of practice. We need to improve on what we were doing in the 1980s now that we are in the 21st century in terms of running junior football.

There, however, seems to be a progression gap between junior level soccer, lower division and professional football.

There seems to be a blind spot at that critical stage of a footballer’s development either at club and association level which has seen many promising careers being lost. It is this gap that needs attention and addressing in order to realise the full potential of junior football.

It is also encouraging to note that Zifa Bulawayo Province would soon introduce a league specifically for the Under-20 players, maybe an Under-23 league would do, to cater for most of the talent that is lost at this stage.

I engaged some coaches, journalists and administrators in the game of football who had different views in so far as this subject matter is concerned. Muziwethu Hadebe, a veteran journalist who has been closely following the discourse of the game at junior level in Bulawayo said: “Junior football is not dead as many think. We need to appreciate what is currently there and support it. What is lacking or missing is the crucial support and that support can only come through proper structures that link the schools, with the teams, be they PSL or lower divisions. In other words it is not proper for the clubs to be running without adopting primary and secondary schools as their partners, most of the talent is wasted as there is no proper link between the schools and the teams, this is where Zifa, PSL, the schools are supposed to develop a relationship so that the youngsters are not wasted.”

It is common practice in Zimbabwe that the senior national team takes so much priority and attention when they are playing their games as opposed to junior national teams. When one considers the manner in which our junior national teams train, camp and travel when representing their national teams, it clearly spells out the manner in which they are prioritised.

Some years ago our junior national Under-20 team failed to travel for their away national assignments. This naturally indicates our priorities and scope when it comes to national team games.

Is the issue of limited financial resources a major concern in junior football development?

Muziwethu Hadebe contends that: “The issue of finance is out as even long ago there was no proper funding for juniors, but with new concepts of running football it is important to have a budget for junior development and with proper marketing, a lot can be achieved, where Coca-Cola is pouring in schools soccer, the same should be done at primary level. Teams with sponsors like Dynamos, Bosso etc, should actually use gate takings for junior development. The issue of funding junior and lower division football may not be attractive to sponsors but that is where the future of the game lies in Zimbabwe. That is where the numbers are too.

Zifa gets six percent from gate takings from each PSL match every weekend during the soccer season. Thesegate takings must not be centralised but must be properly channelled towards youth football development in each province.

Zifa has provincial offices throughout Zimbabwe and this money must be channelled towards good use in promoting junior football.
In Bulawayo alone there are over 42 junior league clubs affiliated to Zifa with Under-13, 15 and 17s that afford upcoming youngsters an opportunity to showcase their talents.

Mostly these are individually owned clubs with no external sponsorship and driven by individuals with immense passion for the game.

These individuals deserve some modicum of respect and recognition in their endeavours to ensure that the game of football remains alive in this country.

The manner in which these “small clubs” are treated by the bigger and financially sound clubs is a cause for concern that duly deserve the interventions from the football authorities.

Fifa statutes are very clear when it comes to junior player movements and it appears Zifa is taking its time to domesticate and implement these frameworks in many that will promote the game of football in the country.

There should be some local framework that governs the transfer and movement of junior players in the country. What then must be done to ensure that our youngsters move from one club to the other in the best interest of the player and the concerned clubs? Bongani Mafu, a Uefa B licence coach and Lobengula Stars FC director also notes that: “One thing that has changed for sure is the value placed on youngsters based solely on potential which makes it hard for senior teams to sign them or even to field them accordingly.

They come on loan sometimes and even the developing junior teams do not seem to have much hold on these youngsters!

After years of paying weekly for their transport, food, referees fees, coaching etc umama comes and tells you umtanami uyakuBosso, ngowami ngamzala ngedwa! And off the boy is gone etc!

Bulawayo is doing okay but we need a much more organised player transfer system, parents yes BUT how many actually know where their kids are playing or being coached BEFORE stardom comes calling?

Mkhululi Mthunzi the Zifa board member with passion for junior development in Bulawayo also notes that: “Football development is a process that takes time to produce quality players as you need a lot of support from various institutions like coaches, good administrators, referees, good equipment and some sponsors to support your activities and usually it can take years to have all these things in place despite all these challenges Bulawayo has continued to play and develop football players.

“Even during the economic meltdown in 2007 and 2008 when some schools closed our junior league remained functional. We have talent as Bulawayo and quite a number of players have gone through our developmental institutions, clubs that have resources and the right coaches have benefitted by producing and selling their finished products both locally and beyond our borders.

“I will only mention names of the few individuals as examples, in the year 2010, in the Under-18s we had players that graduated from our junior league and went straight to play in the Premier League and in the Under-20 national team that failed to travel to Angola and I recall in one match against Botswana we had the following players in the starting line up – Crispen Ncube, the Moyo twins Kelvin and Elvis, Nqobizitha Masuku, Knox Mutizwa, Kuda Mahachi, Mgcini Sibanda and Lawrence Mhlanga playing in the team and if France based Marvelous Nakamba was there as he was selected but had gone for trials overseas, we could have had 10 players from Bulawayo playing for the national team in the starting line up, we also had the Makhandeni Pirates shot stopper Rodrick Madzongwe as the sub goalkeeper in this team and all the boys went on to play in the Premier League.

All these boys were of the right age, these were the first products of our junior league Premier League that we set up in 2010 when we came into office.

One disappointing thing has been the failure by our local Premier League to complement our development initiatives by giving the youngsters some game time thus retarding their development, some have after graduating from our Under-18s disappeared only to resurface in far places as Hippo Valley as stars after local coaches would not have seen nothing special in these players.

Very few coaches in the Premier League teams are prepared to nurture these boys by introducing or playing them regularly save for Lloyd Mutasa and Methembe Ndlovu.

Let me conclude by saying that we are producing good players in Bulawayo and those youngsters that have been given the platform have done exceptionally well like Mthabisi Tshuma who 16.

We really need a complete change on how we do things as a province and as administrators we should have a vision and long term strategies that will see our teams winning championships three or four times in a row rather than taking short cuts that will see us failing to win it and spend on players from elsewhere.

Home grown talent knows the culture of the club.

Our clubs seem keen on recycling old players with mercenary attitudes.

It is therefore clear that Bulawayo junior football is very much alive and there is need to come up with strategies and interventions that ensure that most of our talented youngsters are not lost along the way.

Faith Dube is a commentator with a passion for the game, especially junior development where he has served in Bulawayo Province executive and Benjani Mwaruwari Junior Soccer Festival.