Women’s soccer boss at football indaba

Sikhumbuzo Moyo Senior Sports Reporter
NEWLY elected Zimbabwe Women Football boss and retired journalist Mirriam Sibanda will today join other football executives from across Africa for a two-day African Football Executive (Afex) Conference in South Africa.The conference, to be held under the theme “achieving business success and contributing to the development of African football”, aims to ensure Africa goes beyond being an exporter of football talent. The aim is to see it take its rightful place in the wider football world.

Zifa communications manager Xolisani Gwesela confirmed Sibanda’s attendance and said the knowledge she would gain during the two-day event would go a long way in assisting Zimbabwean women football develop.

“Her presence there will certainly add value to our football,” said Gwesela.

The African Football Executive Confex series is the continent’s most exclusive football business event where senior executives linked to African and international clubs, leagues, federations, brands and sports agencies come together to learn, network and do business.

Delegates will today deliberate over two topics, achieving excellence in African football while the second one will be football sponsorships, business, value creation and marketing with Kick World (UK) director Steve Bellis as one of the key speakers.

Tomorrow, Sibanda and the other delegates are expected to tackle three topics, namely football brands, sponsorship and increasing advertising revenue in the morning, talent identification, grooming and performance issues and women’’s football developments and improving referee standards in Africa.

Some of the major objectives of Afex 2014 is to map a way of transforming African football from being an entity full of potential and opportunities into a business with real economic benefits for its various stakeholders. The conference will provide a platform for delegates to benchmark African football business against international best practices.

It will also touch on the commercialisation of Africa’s professional football leagues, touchline and playing kit advertisement for football sponsorship, answering the question, whose rights are they?