Gumbo’s rallying call
Sp2

Mavis Gumbo

Sports Reporter
INCUMBENT Mavis Gumbo has declared herself ready to face the competition of her only challenger Miriam Sibanda when elections for the Zimbabwe Women’s Soccer leadership take place in the capital on Saturday.At the close of nomination for the polls, Gumbo and Sibanda were confirmed as the only candidates vying for the chairperson’s post.

The vibrant administrator, arguably the best-performing Zifa board member in the last two years, believes she needs another term to take women’s football to another level.

Her initial term was spent reviving the women’s game after years in the doldrums and now that the Mighty Warriors and Young Mighty Warriors’ franchises are up and running, Gumbo wants to strengthen club football.

Admittedly the failure to hold league football for the clubs last year was a low point that hurt Gumbo, her leadership and the teams, but the ZWF boss insists they have learnt their lessons well and are ready to bring on board more sponsors after securing the support of NetOne.

In her election manifesto, Gumbo outlines some of the achievements before outlining her vision if she is retained.

Gumbo noted that her first term in office was not easy as women’s football was at an all-time low and had sunk to its worst, but her board managed to resurrect the dying game.

“There is still more to be done, but we are confident with the groundwork already in place we can achieve a lot in the next five years.
Gumbo said the first phase of her journey with women’s football phase also taught her a lot about the levels of passion for the game.

She said she was pleasantly surprised by the passion for the game shown by young girls and adult women and their desire to grow the game.

She indicated that ZWF has concrete plans to develop women football.

“During my term ZWF will increase training programmes for each of the sport’s stakeholders, such as medical personnel, administrators, technical staff and the players.

“We will revive the early 2000s club — adopt a school programme to ensure schools develop and promote junior football for girls by linking up with a club in their area.

“We will introduce junior leagues at district levels for all age groups working with school sports structures such as National Association of Primary Heads and National Association of Secondary Heads,” Gumbo said.

The Harare Public relations executive also indicated they would retain the current sponsors and attract more corporate partners for the various initiatives that are aimed at developing the game further.

She also spoke on the national league which was suspended last year and said the branded league will continue this year after the setback.

“We have a good relationship with our league sponsor and we have maintained relations with them. We will continue to engage our current and future sponsors on the best way to deliver value to the women’s game.

“We know the fans are passionate about women’s football and we will always respect and salute them.

Gumbo said the women’s game had also been a vehicle to teach the Girl Child some life skills.

“One of the key programmes we will run is the financial management and entrepreneurship life skills training and HIV/AIDS and reproductive health awareness programmes for our players so that they are well rounded citizens who do not promote the sad old story of former football stars living and dying in poverty.

“We want to change that narrative and we believe with our campaign slogan “Ladies First, we can achieve this,” she said.

After ensuring that they spread the game to all the regions Gumbo is hopeful that the game’s stakeholders will give her a fresh mandate to grow all the facet of the women’s game and ensure Zimbabwe remain the dominant force in the Cosafa region as well as a regular feature in the continental tournaments.

“Through a concerted and united approach we managed to invite His Excellency President Robert Mugabe to be the chief patron of Women Football. We revived and grew the Zimbabwe Women Soccer League from zero to 12 teams. We successfully created a new region — the Central region to see the decentralisation and the growth of the game,” reads the manifesto.

“We secured sponsorship for the Mighty Warriors and Young Mighty Warriors and the teams managed to take part in the All Africa Games, Under-20 Women’s World Cup qualifiers and the African Women Championship while hosting and winning the Cosafa Cup.

“We secured sponsorship from Marange Resources for a national league and a knock out tournament for the clubs from NetOne. The profile of women football players was raised enabling many of them to secure gainful employment through sport.

“The national team also had training camps in Egypt, Uruguay and Germany and this broadened their skills such that players like Onai Chingawo, Marjory Nyaumwe and Ruvimbo Mutyavaviri were invited for trials with professional top flight clubs in Germany and Sweden.

“We also grew the profile of the senior national team, the Mighty Warriors and raised their ranking from 22 in Africa and 117 in the world to 9th in Africa and 82 in the world. We are still moving up.

“We made the Mighty Warriors brand visible and everyone wanted to be associated with the team which broke a number of barriers. We are still itching for more and if I am re elected qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations this year and next year’s World Cup in Canada are some of the immediate goals,” Gumbo said.

It is on the basis of those achievements in which she defied odds and received very little financial support from bankrupt Zifa that Gumbo is confident she will triumph on Saturday.

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