adminVeronica Gwaze Sports Reporter
AS the 2019 Zimbabwe Women Soccer League roars into life today with eight games lined up, the league’s chairperson Barbra Chikosi is optimistic of a successful term compared to the previous season. The 2018 season was characterised by financial woes that saw the league failing to fulfil some of its fixtures and programmes. Chikosi expressed optimism in the new ZIFA board, which she said has pledged full support towards women’s football.
“This time things have changed for the better.
“The new faces at ZIFA are all about delivering first, then talk later because they have football at heart,” she said.
At the end of 2018 season, ZWSL revealed that there were issues that needed to be addressed urgently, lest the 2019 was likely to suffer. The issue of ZWSL running without a constitution was key among other issues that included financial woes. The women’s league felt they were not getting enough aid from their motherboard ZIFA, something that derailed progress .
Chikosi said the new ZIFA board has already made strides in ensuring women’s football benefits from the higher board by punctually addressing the burning issues.
“The president and the new board have been saying they rally behind women’s football and are urgently addressing burning issues, which goes a long way in portraying their dedication.
“With the previous boards, the issue of our allocation as women football was not clear, but finally, we have gotten somewhere. We engaged the board recently and it was revealed that as ZWSL, we will be getting a certain amount, a figure that I cannot disclose right now. The amount will ensure that teams are given assistance towards transportation fees to successfully fulfil their fixtures.
“The allocation has been unclear for long and this clarity is something worth celebrating because now we know what we are looking at and we can plan ahead to avoid glitches in our season,” she said.
There has also been developments on the issue of their constitution after ZWSL has been operating without one, forcing them to refer all issues to the motherbody. Chikosi revealed that the league was in the past rocked by challenges to do with governance, rules and regulations.
Towards the end of last season, Black Rhinos Queens and Herentals Queens had a feud which erupted into violence, resulting in injuries of several players and team officials.
Hosts Herentals Queens were suspended by ZWSL, pending disciplinary action. ZWSL, however, had to lift the ban days later without taking any further action because they were running without a constitution and could not legally ban them (Herentals).
“We could not solve our problems on our own without running back to the motherbody, but finally the constitution is now there and it has already been deliberated on.
“Now we are able to take action when challenges arise, although we are still a baby to ZIFA,” Chikosi said.
Chikosi added that last season the league also faced challenges of lack of professionalism and etiquette within clubs. She said some individuals were running clubs without full knowledge of football rules, causing a lot of glitches to the league. “We had problems of some individuals running clubs without adequate football knowledge and we have engaged relevant offices and the association to help us with induction and training to bring integrity within the sport.
“The induction will begin anytime and the women’s football board will also be inducted to avoid a discord,” Chikosi said.
The ZWSL chairperson said her mandate is to bring women’s football to equal standing as men’s because they have great potential to perform with adequate funding.
“This time we are running more professionally and we are maintaining 16 teams in the league contrary to reducing to 12 as we had previously proposed. Because of that, we are out in full force hunting for corporate sponsors to invest and relevant stakeholders to play their part. It brings pleasure seeing that finally change has come,” she said.
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