All is now in place for the staging of the 2024 edition of the Ziyah Media junior soccer tournament to be hosted at Dulibadzimu Stadium on Saturday.
The tournament featured six school teams from in and around Beitbridge namely Vhembe High School, Chibi High School, St Mary's High School, Swereki High School, Zezani High School and Tongwe High School.
Last year the tournament had only three teams and this time the event has grown to the extent that there will be two girls teams, Siyoka and Vhembe also taking part.
Ziyah Media chief executive officer and Vhembe Stars Academy president Loadwell Ziyadumah said he decided to come with this tournament as a way of scouting the vast talent in the district and nurturing it.
“The biggest reason why I am having this tournament is to scout talent in the district because I have discovered that there is a lot of good talent out there and those guys have to be identified and nurtured. I am looking forward to taking them to another level. It’s also to take away those boys from drugs because most of them are into drugs,” he said.
“The reason why I am sponsoring junior football is because here in Beitbridge there is no one who is taking care of these junior players. In this district there are so many boozers teams, more than 50, which I see playing every Sunday. You will see that other young boys are playing in those boozer teams mixing with those old guys while they are very young so I have decided to make sure that I put them in their age groups so that they play together. There are so many wrong things that happen at the boozers games which makes it a bad environment for young players,” he said.
Ziyadumah encouraged football lovers from the district to come and support the talented young boys and girls who will be competing in the tournament.
The winners of the tournament will get prize money and a floating trophy.