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Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
EXPERIENCED football administrator Kennedy Ndebele represented the Premier Soccer League at its maiden appearance at the World Leagues Forum that ended in Mexico on Saturday.

The PSL joined the WLF, a body of professional football leagues from around the globe that represents their interests.

By attending the WLF annual general meeting, the PSL could have set a path to gain global exposure as well as commercial growth.

Ndebele rubbed shoulders with football bosses from developed leagues.

In the build-up to his trip to Mexico, Ndebele said: “We stand to benefit greatly from our membership of WLF, as we get a chance to learn and co-operate with advanced nations in the operations and management of football competitions and all aspects of the game.

“We also get to establish relations with the developed leagues that will in turn help our clubs and league grow to greater heights.”

The Zimbabwean PSL became the sixth African league after Algeria, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Guinea to join WLF.

Fifa master programme graduate Brightwell Kadenge facilitated the PSL’s membership of WLF.

At the Mexican congress, Christian Seifert, chief executive officer of the German Football League, is the new president of WLF, taking over from former English Premier League executive chairman Richard Scudamore.

America’s Major League Soccer (MLS) commissioner Don Garber and Enrique Bonilla, executive president of Liga MX, are the two WLF vice-chairmen.

Among members of WLF are the English Premier League, Italy’s Serie A, Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga and France’s Ligue 1.

The objectives of WLF are to help develop modern, effective governance structures within world football that respect football national bodies’ role to foster co-operation between the leagues and their member clubs through knowledge sharing and exchange of best practices with an emphasis on helping emerging leagues in their development and to represent the leagues and their member clubs on all matters of common interest towards sport and political institutions.

Membership is open to any football league that operates top level competitions in its country.

The leagues must have a legal structure and statutes of their own.

They must also be financially independent with their own administration structure and a dedicated board.

— @ZililoR