PREMIER Soccer League newbies Green Fuel will soon launch the Billy Rautenbach Cup tournament in Chisumbanje for young talent in rural communities as the club seeks to draft them into its developmental squad.
The tournament will also honour club owner and businessman Rautenbach for the huge role he is playing in developing sport in Chipinge, including financing the league side.
Boys Dze Nharo, as Green Fuel are fondly known, are leaving no stone unturned in their bid to develop talent in Chipinge and surrounding districts.
Club chairman Fredson Moyo said they have a long term plan to unearth and promote talent from the rural areas.
He said they are planning to establish a new converyor belt of talent from one of the most marginalised communities of Zimbabwe.
“We are going to have the Billy Rautenbach Cup which is going to see youth teams from the surrounding areas participate. From this we will be able to pick out the best players and draft them into our developmental structures,” Moyo said.
“This Billy Rautenbach Cup is going to be a yearly event and we are going to work with local schools and communities so that we broaden our catchment area.
“In the future, we would want to have players from our developmental structures being promoted and dominating our senior team, the way you have seen big clubs like Barcelona do their business.
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“Having some of our best talents coming in from our communities will also help us in building a strong support base. Just like you see in Europe that teams there have their support base firmly rooted in communities.
“We are hoping that soon we will be playing our home matches here at our Green Fuel Arena and we want to create an intimidating atmosphere such that it would be hard for teams to come here and go away with points.”
Green Fuel, which had a difficult start to their maiden season in the topflight league, are hoping to build on their huge win against Dynamos last week.
They face Triangle at Gibbo Stadium on Sunday.
“Our performance of late have been pleasing. Yes we beat Dynamos but it was a culmination of efforts made in the previous matches,” Moyo boasted.
“We have so much confidence in our coach Rodwell Dhlakama and his technical bench that they are going to see us remain in the premier league next season.”
Under Dhlakama who replaced Bhekitemba Ndlovu, Green Fuel are slowly gathering momentum although they are still in the relegation zone.
Thanks to their win last weekend, they moved a point above Simba Bhora, who occupy the relegation cut-off point.
