Story by Mthokozisi Dube
Football scouts have rallied the nation to utilise the Confederation of Southern Africa Schools Sports Association (COSSASA) games set for Bulawayo in August for talent identification.
Zimbabwe deviated from junior football development in a move which has affected national team performance.
With the ZIFA normalisation committee retracing footsteps back to grassroots development, football scouts have urged the local football mother body to leverage on the upcoming COSSASA games.
Flying Eagles Academy director, Collen Nyambiya said, “We are excited that a tournament like COSSASA is coming to Bulawayo. As people involved in junior football development, we believe this is a perfect starting point as we move towards establishing junior structures. We will support the tournament as it is a platform to produce our future stars and the coming in of the tournament is a milestone achievement.”
Zimbabwe assumed hosting rights after Lesotho failed to host the annual regional tournament and COSSASA President Arthur Maphosa disclosed that they have activated their systems to stage a successful tournament.
“We are excited that Zimbabwe welcomed the idea of hosting the COSSASA games. The games are pencilled from the 29th to the 31st of August. In terms of preparations, the games will be held in Bulawayo and White City will be the main venue.”
The host province is incorporating all stakeholders to stage another miniature template of the region five games.
Sport and Recreation Commission, Bulawayo province coordinator, Sam Dzvimbo said, “We are engaging all stakeholders from both the NAPH and NASH associations as we seek to stage a successful futuristic event. As Bulawayo and as a nation, we are happy to be hosting another edition of the COSSASAS games and our plea to ZIFA is to keep checking the progress of the boys identified during the CAF schools competition who will feature in this edition and the same challenge should also go to other federations which will have their sport codes being played.”
The COSSASA games are expected to leave a long-lasting legacy in sport infrastructure development.