New beginning for women’s football

WOMEN’S football has been thrown a fresh lease of life with the newly-appointed interim executive putting in measures to professionalise it ahead of the start of the top-flight season next month.

Barbara chikosi, her deputy Wilbert Rambanapasi, and members of the entire board were on saturday booted out of office following a vote of no confidence by stakeholders including clubs.

The stakeholders felt that the league was operating at a social level, without a constitution.

Theresa Maguraushe is leading the interim exco while deputised by Faith Drive Queens director Dumisani sithole.

The latter, who is also the interim executive’s spokesperson said women’s football will never be the same again.

“The Women’s super League kicks off on april 13 and we are going to professionalise it.

“Previously, women’s football top league has been running without fourth officials,” said sithole.

“There has been no constitution to govern the game. It has been more of an amateur league and at the end of the day, the league was struggling to hold end-of-year awards.

“Players have been playing without licences and it has been an animal farm.

“But we have since put together an array of measures to help professionalise the game.

“We have already paid the referees in advance until the end of the season. We have introduced the fourth officials and they too have been paid till the end of the season.

“We aim to ensure everything is professional. We are also going to be registering the players the same way the Premier soccer League does it, through the FIFA connect system.”

sithole said, they, in partnership with the ZIFA Normalisation committee, will hold workshops to train paramedics, clubs, and all other stakeholders to make sure that everything moves flawlessly in the coming season.

he added that the interim exco will be advocating for equal pay between male and female footballers.