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Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
HIGHLANDERS Football Club have indicated that they are waiting for their licence to operate a football academy having already registered one with the Zimbabwe Football Association.

The move is meant to generate more revenue from player sales. Bosso seeks to move away from just having junior teams but an academy that will produce players that the club will promote to the senior team and sell abroad.

In terms of the Highlanders plan, players will be registered into the academy at a young age and have their development monitored.

The present junior teams are likely to be fused into the academy while the club will keep the Bosso90 team which plays in the Zifa Southern Region Division One League.

Creating a winning academy also helps build the reputation of a football club.

Highlanders have already revealed they will be making technical changes in their coaching department and part of that restructuring will see academy appointments being made.

Sakunda Holdings

Johnfat Sibanda, the Highlanders executive committee chairman informed members at the club’s annual general meeting held on Sunday they were now waiting for authorisation to operate the academy, with the anticipation being that the club will be allowed to do so this year.

“We have registered our club academy with Zifa and we await the requisite licence with the hope that the academy will start operating this year. One of the biggest takeaways from our European tour was how clubs in Europe take academies seriously, and how they generate revenue through the sale of players from academies,” Sibanda informed the members.

He said their trip to Europe had been a huge eye-opener despite some critics labeling the expedition as just a holiday outing.

“The main objective of the tour was to look and learn how clubs in Europe are run. The delegation learned a lot, particularly on fan match day experience, merchandising and academies. In brief, the European experience taught us that football has migrated from being a leisure activity to becoming a                                    business.

“Football is a very complex business that has no shortcuts to success but requires one to plan properly and invest properly and invest heavily if they are to produce desired results.

“Whilst we have always appreciated the need to comply with Fifa club licensing, and run our club as a vibrant business, the European Tour made us realise that transformation is needed urgently,” the Bosso chairman said.

The Highlanders delegation of board chairman Luke Mnkandla, executive chairman Sibanda, executive committee secretary Morgen Dube, and treasurer Busani Mthombeni embarked on a Sakunda Holdings-sponsored tour of Europe that ran for 10 days last year.

Nqobile Magwizi with Highlanders board chairman Luke Mkandla and executive committee chairman Johnfat Sibanda at Old Trafford

The travelling quartet began their business in Paris, France, where they spent three days before splitting up. Mnkandla and Sibanda travelled to Manchester while Dube and Mthombeni went to Barcelona, Spain, again for three days. They reunited in Brussels, Belgium to conclude the tour. – @innocentskizoe