As the return of football in Zimbabwe gathers momentum, eleven football teams from Bulawayo and surrounding areas received a timely donation of soccer boots and kit bags from Inspire Women, Men and Children’s Trust.
The teams included Premiership giants Highlanders Football Club, Bulawayo Chiefs, Bulawayo City Football Club, Nozizwe, Big-11, Mpopoma Stars and Luveve Academy.
The other recipients were Ngwalo, Luveve Vets, Phelandaba West, Sjauke and Neta Mpopoma.
Each team received eleven pairs of soccer boots, kits bags and other accessories, save for Highlanders which received 22 pairs of soccer boots for their junior teams.
Speaking during the handover ceremony on Saturday, the organisation’s projects manager, Gift Sanyamawe, said football has the ability to unite communities.
“We do various activities to empower women, men and children alike and of late we have been focusing on social aspects. With the assistance from Basildon Boys and Girls Club based abroad, this donation has been made possible,” he said.
“We realized that there is so much talent in the community but due to unavailability of resources, some players fail to get enough exposure. We hope that this will help various soccer teams to play better.”
Bulawayo City Football club board member, Councillor Rodney Jele told CITE that the gesture comes at an opportune time when the players had stayed away from the football pitch due to Covid-19.
“We have not been playing football of late and as the season is about to begin the team would have been expected to buy boots for the players. This has come in quite handy for the players and we are grateful. We hope that more teams around Bulawayo can also benefit from this organization in the future,” Cllr Jele said.
Iris Nozizwe Mhlanga of Nozizwe Mother of the Nation Trust said the donation is quite handy as their organisation has a promising football team but had challenges in acquiring resources.
“Some of the players in our team play barefooted so this is really going to be a huge boost for them. Some struggle to get just the basics. We are so grateful for these boots,” she said.
