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BREAKING NEW GROUND . . . Alphios Magiya, the Zimbabwe Handball Federation secretary-general, said the inaugural Handball Premier League will get underway today with all Northern Region matches being played at Houghton Park Primary School in Harare

Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Handball Premier League takes off today with more than 15 men’s and women’s teams set to participate at Houghton Park Primary School in Harare.
The league will see various teams battling it out in the Northern and Southern Regions. For the Northern Region, the league starts today at 9am with 10 men and eight women clubs drawn from Harare, Mashonaland East, Manicaland, Mashonaland West and Mashonaland Central competing.
The Southern Region league is made up of Matabeleland South, Midlands, Matabeleland North, Masvingo and Bulawayo.

Alphios Magiya, the Zimbabwe Handball Federation secretary-general, said all Northern Region matches will be played at Houghton Park Primary School starting this morning.

“Normally we use one venue, we just look for a venue that can accommodate all teams.
“It’s for spectatorship, we do not want to split our spectators since this is the first of its kind. We don’t want our teams to be away from the people.

“The clubs are all excited, they want to see how the league will unfold. They are comparing it to other leagues such as (soccer’s) PSL and they are expecting to see activities that will be unfolding just like in the other leagues,” said Magiya.

Magiya said the matches will be rotated in all provinces for each region with the Northern Region expected to rotate the fixtures in the five provinces while the Southern Region will also do the same.

ZHF president, Amon Madzvamuse, said they have divided the provinces into two regions inorder to cut travelling costs and also attract more clubs. The top four teams from both regions will then meet to decide the top eight clubs.

“The first reason is financial constraints for clubs. For clubs from Matabeleland to travel to Manicaland it may be a tall order for them and we don’t want to lose clubs on that merit. On the other hand we said we are also trying to mobilise the number of clubs and by having two leagues we can have as many clubs as we can.

“But at the end we will have the top four from the Northern Region and the top four from the Southern Region, then they compete  to give us the top eight,” said Madzvamuse.

The ZHF president is hopeful the introduction of the league will open opportunities for sponsorship.
“We can’t talk of sponsors where there was no handball being played but we are now going to have sponsors as we are going to have these clubs playing handball.

“All along when we had tournaments we had various sponsors coming to sponsor that particular event and they have said they want to see how far we can go before they can come on board,” said Madzvamuse.

The league will run up to November 29.

Fixtures
Today
Men: Black Rhinos v Houghton Park Sharks, B.E.C v Manyame Airbase, Hardshots v Chipadze Hawks, Top Stars Alliance v Glendale Stars, Morgan Zintech v Mutare Teachers College.
Women: B.E.C v Black Rhinos, Houghton Park Sharks v Goromonzi Stars, Bindura White Stars v Chipadze Hawks, Morgan Zintech v Mutare Teachers.