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Grace Chingoma-Senior Sports Reporter
FORMER Warriors striker Benjani Mwaruwari believes there is still football talent in the country but people are falling short when it comes to nurturing it.
He says people should go back to basics in football development.
The former Auxerre and Manchester City forward said this on the sidelines of a youth football tournament at Chemhanza Grounds in the high-density suburb of Tafara yesterday.
AC Milan beat Yellow Stars 1-0 in the final match. Six youth teams from the local community took part in the tournament that was sponsored by aspiring Member of Parliament for Harare East, Mavis Gumbo.
Mwaruwari, former Warriors defender Harlington Shereni and ex-Warriors goalkeeper’s coach Brenna “Ba Gari” Msiska were guests at the tournament.
Gumbo, a former ZIFA board member who was responsible for Zimbabwe Women’s Soccer, is the ZANU-PF candidate for the March 26 by-election. Mwaruwari said he was happy to come and scout talent and inspire upcoming players that they can also make it through football.
“The reason why I came here is to identify talent and inspire them, of course. These tournaments are good as they keep away youths from vices such as drug and crime,” said Mwaruwari. “Talent will go down if not nurtured, you have to reap where you sow. People should nurture talent from a young age, if you look at the moment we have a vibrant Premier Soccer League, but we don’t have the same for the junior age-groups.
“So if these players retire, where will we get fresh talent from? So you have to start there from the grassroots and nurture it in every part of Zimbabwe. Look, during our days, there were a lot of development programmes that’s why we had a lot of good players around Zimbabwe. But we have to go back where we started from,” said Mwaruwari.
Mwaruwari was part of the SuperSport pundits during the African Cup of Nations finals. He is yet to return to England since the AFCON finals. His family is based in the United Kingdom where his son is at Portsmouth Academy.
“I came here to support my sister Mavis (Gumbo), who is a football person and understands the game. What is lacking is that once players are identified, there is no follow-up on these youngsters. If you follow on football around the country, you will clearly see that there is talent, and sometimes you wonder why some of these players are not being drafted into age-groups teams starting from the Under-15s.’’
Online Reporter