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Bulawayo Bureau
TIRED of recycling administrators and driven by the desire to have people not aligned to any so-called football factions, some women clubs are reportedly planning to send emissaries to Elizabeth Rosen and Primrose Dube to pick up nomination papers for the Zimbabwe Women Football chairperson and deputy chairperson elections respectively. Rosen is the widow of the late firebrand Motor Action founder and president Eric Rosen who died in January this year.

Dube is the wife of veteran Bulawayo City striker Mkhokheli Dube. Sources said there was some consensus that the pair should be given a chance to lead the troubled women’s game. “There is a general feeling that women football in Zimbabwe needs to start on a new slate and the November 19 elections present us with that opportunity where we need to put in new brooms, people not aligned to any so-called factions.

“At the same time people with a business acumen and international contacts hence the names of these two women,”

Elizabeth and her late husband Eric formed Motor Action in 2000 out of the ashes of Blackpool and transformed it into one of the most feared teams in Zimbabwe and their patience finally paid in 2010 when they lifted the unbranded Premier Soccer League that saw them winning the right to represent the country in the Caf Champions League.

Despite getting no dime from the domestic sweat, Elizabeth and Eric toiled with the team in the African jungles although they were knocked out in the first round. Primrose is an operations manager at Grassroots Zimbabwe, a very successful football for hope programme run by Methembe Ndlovu.

She has connections with world renowned clubs like Arsenal and Barcelona through her association with Grassroots Zimbabwe. Her husband, Mkhokheli, is well networked in football circles having played in the United States.

“It becomes easy for someone like Primrose to use her influence to get sponsorship for the girl child, even attachments for our players and indeed club administrators. We, however, also know that this is an election people have a right to choose who they want,” said the source.

Efforts to get in touch with Elizabeth were fruitless as her mobile number was not going through. Her late husband’s close confidante and business partner, Simeon Jamanda, said if clubs feel she was the right person to lead them, why couldn’t she. “If people want her then I see nothing wrong with that,” said Jamanda. Primrose said she needed to consult first before commenting.