THE great strides being made by Zambian women football on the international stage needs serious attention.
These girls have proven that they are capable of churning out the desired results even without a proper structure for them.
Is it not amazing or indeed shocking that the success recorded so far is in fact coming out of nothing?
Against all the odds, the Under-17 women team tore the form book by denying the much fancied and developed South Africa from qualifying to the 2014 World Cup. The Zambian lasses instead sealed a historic World Cup qualification.
It was the first time that a Zambian women team was reaching those levels in terms of international football.
Next month, Zambia will be among the globe’s best 16 countries to battle for honours at the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup finals in Costa Rica.
Yet, this success came without any recognisable league structure in place here.
On Friday, the senior women team commonly referred to as She-polopolo also moved a step closer to qualifying to the 2014 Africa Women Championship (AWC) finals after shutting out Tanzania’s Twiga Stars.
The senior team now stands just two games away from reaching the AWC finals set for Namibia in October.
With all this potential being shown by the women teams, it is clear that the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) and other relevant stakeholders need to do something to keep this momentum.
Women football needs to be helped by putting up a strong league structure just like for the men folk where they will be competing and indeed improving every week.
We need to have a league which should reach levels that can even attracting league sponsors.
To ensure that these particular games also attract a large following, FAZ can probably put in place a deliberate programme where each Premiership match should be preceded by a women’s league game.
Apart from making the women league more competitive, this (league) can also invoke interest from several talented girls who currently do not have a platform to showcase their potential.
The establishment of the northern and southern leagues for women football which FAZ general secretary, George Kasengele attributed to the recent positive results being registered by our national teams should just be used as a springboard for the expansion of the game.
It is my hope that we shall soon see more of such initiatives including cup competitions coming up for the women’s sport.
As I congratulate the women teams for their successes, I am also wishing Zambia’s envoys in the CAF Confederation Cup, Zesco United the best of luck today when they take on Mozambican side, Ferroviario da Beira. E-mail: malungaf@gmail.com