Online Reporter
Fungai Muderere, [email protected]
TWO friendly matches between Zimbabwe Futsal Five-A-Side national team and their Zambian counterparts that were scheduled for early April in Lusaka, have been shelved.
Zimbabwe’s Futsal Five-A-Side chairman Philani Banda said the games which were set to take place on April 4 and 6 have been postponed to June.
“We got an invite from Zambia to engage with them in two friendly games in Lusaka on April 4 and 6. However, after realising that Zambia’s invitation came on short notice and it was going to affect our preparations we decided otherwise,” said Banda.
He added: “The other thing is that the bulk of our boys (players) do not have passports and as such we need more time to adequately prepare. In that regard, we saw it prudent to have the games played in June.”
The local association is in the process of teaching its Southern Region and Northern Region administrators tenets of the Fifa Connect Programme.
The Fifa Connect Programme helps member associations (MAs) register all their stakeholders in a systematic way and keep track of players, coaches and referees – wherever they are in the world. The Connect Programme provides a unique Fifa ID code for every individual who has a role in the football organisation.
This code is like a digital football passport number and has the information of the history of each stakeholder.
Last Friday, a workshop in that regard was held in Bulawayo for Southern Region administrators.
“We are in the process of teaching our regional administrators things to do with the Fifa Connect Programme. Today (last Friday), we held sessions for administrators from the Southern Region. We are yet to come out with the date that will cater for administrators from the Northern Region,” said Banda.
The programme aims to be one globally valid unique identification code for all stakeholders, transparency and efficient football administration through the systematic registration of all players and stakeholders and digital management of competitions.
It also aims to support the development of MAs by defining a strategic plan for registration and IT based on their current level of technological maturity.
It also calls for standardisation of data and processes and having one football ecosystem for data, thus allowing the easy integration and exchange of data from different sources.
It also speaks to commercial advantages by using the collected data to engage with sponsors and fans.— @FungaiMuderere.
