Warriors coach Michael Nees has hailed the formation of National Foods’ sponsored Gloria Under-17 Champions league which was launched at Greendale Sports Club yesterday.
Nees was a surprise guest at the event which was also attended by Zifa technical director Jethro Hunidzarira.
The junior football league which target budding footballers from 16 years and under is scheduled to run from the beginning of March to October 2025.
A total of nine football academies, eight from Harare and on from Murehwa will make up the inaugural competition with the number expected to increase in the coming years.
The league will run under the theme “Kick-out drugs and substance abuse’’.
“When I see here ‘kick-out drugs and substance abuse’ that's definitely something positive. And it must be, of course, not only written and said, it must be also lived in a certain way. And so for that reason I think I'm really looking forward to hear good things about the league,” the German national said.
“When the time allows, of course, I will also watch here and there a game, because for me this is where where our players from the Warriors come from originally. It's environments like that. And that helps me also to better understand the players, the reality behind, and that's the real football. That's where everything starts and maybe even in a younger age but it's good to have a league like that.
“I have a soft spot for development. I myself have worked for a very long time in development and I can recall the time when I was young and I was also playing football in my home club.
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“And I can tell you it is very important that you have a good training environment, but at the same time that you have also the opportunity to play games and matches against other teams in a league. Not just friendly games, sometimes you also want real competition,” he added.
Some of the academies making up the Gloria Champions League include Jadel Football Academy, Dickson Choto Football Aacademy, BN Football Academy, Africa Elite Football Academy and Forward Nyanyiwa Football Academy, which is based in Murehwa.
Chairman of Gloria Under-17 Champions League, Gift Mabvudza explained the idea behind the formation of the initiative.
“The main thrust of this league that we are going to try to launch today is that we help the kids to develop their talents and to make sure that we are fighting drugs and substance abuse. Most of the time, if the kids have nothing to do, they will be busy either drinking. So if we develop or if we come up with such programmes, we feel that at the end of the day, (2:35) these programmes will help us to harness these kids whilst they are still young, and make sure that their talent is developed.
"So in a nutshell, we will start off with a league of a number of academies that are based in Harare and we put nine clubs or nine academies that came together to formulate this project that you are celebrating here today. But more importantly, we also want to thank our sponsors that have tried to help us, Gloria, which is National Foods, because our league is actually called the Gloria Under-17 Champions League,” he said.
