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Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
FOOTBALL boardrooms in the country remain a distinctly male domain despite the fact that women are slowly taking up leadership roles in the game the world over.

Highlanders members will be heading to the polls to elect a chairman, secretary-general and committee member and no woman has dared enter the ring.

In a bid to encourage women to also take up leadership roles, Bosso said it is working on creating a gender-sensitive institution that accommodates both men and women.

Bosso will soon officially launch the Soccer4her campaign aimed at encouraging women’s participation in the country’s oldest club.

According to Bosso communications officer Ronald Moyo, the campaign’s main objective is to make football in general, and Highlanders in particular, a friendly environment for women.

“We will be launching the project soon but the challenge has been Covid-19. Remember we had a lockdown for the greater part of last year, then we had a holiday and now we are back under lockdown.

“We are still working around the modalities of officially launching the project. The issue is that we realised football remains a predominantly male sport where women that come into football are abused and called by all sorts of derogatory names. In the end, they do not want to be part of football,” said Moyo.

“Those who go to football games are viewed with scorn and suspicion. Our goal is to change that perception and make people aware that football is a family sport. Women should also enjoy the privilege of participating in all football activities.”

Moyo said women had a big role to play in the success of the club.

“If we can have more women coming into football that will be a big win for the club. What we are saying is we are not filling up Barbourfields and those gaps that we see should be filled by women. Sales of our replica jerseys should be boosted by women but that is not happening because women are not part of football. Women are made to feel like outcasts and some of them end up supporting Highlanders from their homes.

“So, the campaign is basically stating that football is a family sport and you can’t talk of family without a female figure. We need women to feel at home in football, which is a family sport. We hope this project will see women being part and parcel of Bosso. We do not want women to be observers in football but they should be part of the decision making,” said Moyo.

At Highlanders, decisions are made by members at the annual general meeting and Moyo said they expect women to be part of that decision-making process.

“The Highlanders constitution is very clear that decisions are made by members regardless of their gender. As Bosso, we want to see the number of people who consume our products grow. When we talk about our product, we are referring to watching the games and buying merchandise and replica jerseys. We want to see consumers of those products grow. So, it’s something we are taking very seriously.” – @innocentskizoe