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Innocent Kurira
FIFA Forward manager, Kudzai Chitima, has announced that the recruitment process for the CAF African Schools Championships qualifiers has begun.
The event will be hosted in Zimbabwe from December 14-16 and will involve 10 other nations that will be hoping to represent the region on the continental stage.
These are Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, and Zambia.
Zimbabwe did not participate in last year’s event, and this year’s tournament will offer an opportunity to identify and recruit the best of the schools’ talent.
The tournament aims to impart life skills to the players on and off the pitch.
The regulations this year allow the countries to send their best footballers from the national qualifiers rather than a single winning school as was the case last year.
The draw for the competition will be held in Harare ahead of the event.
It will be a big step up from the inaugural event that was hosted in Malawi in October last year, which had five girls’ and six boys’ teams.
“We are in the process of recruiting coaches for both the boys’ and girls’ Under-15 national teams. It gives an opportunity for players to be scouted, thereby creating different player pathways. We hope they learn life skills off the pitch.
“The championship is important for the training hours they will receive and talent identification and creation of different player pathways,” Chitima said.
Zimbabwe has previously played host to both the men’s and women’s senior COSAFA championships, and now takes on the schools qualifier after Malawi successfully staged the inaugural event last year.
Online Reporter