Zimpapers Logo

Tadious Manyepo Sports Reporter
WHILE Herentals are in a desperate survival battle in Premiership football, they have made huge leaps to conform to the CAF Club Licensing requirements by implementing strong development structures to harvest and nurture developing talents.

Last Friday, the club, bankrolled by Herentals Group of Colleges and Schools, was putting finishing touches in Chitungwiza to its academy which will have different branches across the country.

Under Club Licensing, which ZIFA has implemented in part, especially in the top-flight this season, each professional club should have a vibrant junior policy.

And Herentals last week held their final try-outs for potential recruits into the academy which will consist of exclusively students enrolled in the expansive learning institution.

Twelve boys from Highfield, who beat Westwood 1-0 in the final of the Under-14 Benza Brothers trophy, will form the core of that age-group in the academy.

Several players from CBD1, who beat Mutare, led by hat-trick hero Joshua Madzinga, have also since been seconded to the team’s Division One club. Herentals director Innocent Benza said his team feel obliged to play an active role to develop football in the country.

“As Herentals Football Club and Herentals Group of Colleges and Schools, we feel we have an equal duty, just like everyone else, to identify and nurture talent,” said Benza.

“We feel there is so much raw talent which is going untapped in the country. If everyone plays their part in picking and developing youngsters, we will soon be having a concrete national team at every age-group which will be very difficult to crack.

“So, as a Premiership team, yes we need to conform with the Club Licencing requirements as demanded in the statutes. We have a vast academy with several branches across the country.

“Every year, the Group of Colleges and Schools will be holding an end-of-the-year sports gala and use that platform to recruit more players into the academy. Not only Herentals will benefit from this initiative but all other clubs in different divisions as well.”

Apart from the boys academy, the team will also have a girls academy. On Friday, Zengeza beat Chitungwiza 3-0 in the Under-17 finals and all the girls who played the tense match have already been inducted into the academy.

Such players as Chicken Inn utility Liberty Chakoroma as well as a good number of Herentals stars, including Brighton Majarira and Wilmore Chimbetu, came through the same system though the idea of forming a fully-fledged academy had not yet been conceived.