Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
THE 2026 Mai Hondo junior football competition gets underway on Sunday, with a rebranded girls competition, dubbed Ten Toes Mai Hondo Under-18 girls tournament, set for Eve Golf and Football grounds in Florida, Mutare.
Matches start at 8am.
Mutare’s flagship football tournament took a different approach this year in separating the girls and boys’ competitions, which used to be hosted at the same time.
Chimboy, Getty Queens, Sheckon Queens, Eastville Queens, Red Buffalo Academy, Mutare City Queens, Eastern Queens and Maningi Youth Soccer Academy make up the eight participating teams.
Organisers of the Ten Toes Mai Hondo girls’ Under-18 competition have issued a set of rules and regulations for the eight participating teams.
Eligible players were born in 2008 or later. Under the rules of the competition, using an overage player leads to points deductions for every affected match and possible exclusion from future tournaments.
Mai Hondo organising committee chief associate, Blessing Mutsaka, confirmed that the Mai Hondo junior football competition will be played on Sunday.
“All is set for this year’s edition of the Mai Hondo Tournament. Like we announced before, we partnered Ten Toes Africa, an organisation that deals with grassroots talent development. We have separated the girls’ tournament and the boys’ tournament because we want to commemorate the global girl child month together with the rest of the world.
“The separation is also meant to make the girl child competition more visible, unlike in the past when it existed in the shadow of the boy child category.
“Normally, when we have the boys and girls playing at the same time, more concentration is given to the boy child competition.
“So this time around, we hope to have more parents, spectators, talent scouts, coaches and supporters paying attention to the girl child competitions. We want the crowd to solely focus on the girls.
“We are expecting eight teams, most of them from Mutare, but we are having Maningi from Masvingo, Chimboy from Wengezi and Red Buffalo coming from Nyazura.
“We are thankful to ZIFA for ensuring that more girls teams participate. We have targeted the Under-18 girls, but with time, we intend to reduce that age group to Under-15, so that we tap the talent at a lower level,” he said.
Allan Johnson, a member of Ten Toes Africa, said:
“Ten Toes Africa, is a non-profit organisation owned by former Young Warriors defender, Miguel Lemming.
“We run an annual boys and girls’ tournament, and this year, we decided to partner with Mai Hondo Trust in hosting a girls’ tournament as we believe Mai Hondo has the same objectives of helping young girls to gain experience and opportunities. Ten Toes Africa also sponsors Maningi Queens and various children across Zimbabwe and the US.”
Ten Toes Mai Hondo girls tourney kicks-off
