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Jonathan Mashingaidze

Sports Reporter
PREMIER Soccer League clubs meet in Harare today for a two-day Caf Club Licensing workshop at Cresta Oasis Hotel.

Zifa chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze said the seminar will help clubs professionalise football and probably take the game to a higher level.

Caf instructors Maxwell Mtonga of Malawi, Zambia’s Honour Janza and Dennis Mumble of South Africa are the course facilitators.

“This is basically a seminar meant to help our clubs understand the club licensing tenets. In order to develop football, Zifa applied for a club licensing seminar, which the continental body is wholly funding, that is conferencing only. Participants will have to find their way to Harare and cater for their own lodgings. The good thing is that all the PSL teams have confirmed that they are sending representatives,” said Mashingaidze.

Each club has to send two representatives, the chairman and secretary general.

Subjects to be discussed at the workshop include sporting, personnel and administrative, financial, infrastructure and legal issues.

Under the sporting criteria, instructors will cover the importance of having a reserve side and youth or junior teams. They will be taught on how to come up with a clear development strategy.

The issue of having qualified coaches also falls within the sporting subject.

Hiring of qualified personnel like having a general manager or chief executive officer, media and communications officer, establishing a marketing department and a security and medical officer are covered in personnel and administrative subject.

On infrastructure, Mashingaidze said: “For purposes of affiliation with the Premier Soccer League, a club should produce evidence like a lease agreement that it has been allowed to use a stadium for competition matches. Such stadia should meet basic requirements like the VIP lounge, media centre and media tribune. This criterion dictates that national associations have to encourage their respective governments to play a major role in upgrading facilities. This criterion also mentions a ‘flexible arrangement’ where a maximum of four teams can share the same venue.”

Another key principle of club licensing is for clubs to possess audited books of accounts and finances.

These audited books of accounts should be ratified by members of the club.

Issues to do with the constitution will be dealt with under the legal criteria.

Meanwhile, Mashingaidze said Zifa president Phillip Chiyangwa will take advantage of the club licensing workshop to meet the PSL governors to discuss the affiliate’s elections.