Zimbabwe football legend Peter Ndlovu believes national team coaches should look at local players first before they can consider those based abroad because there is a lot of football talent in the country.
The former Coventry City star was speaking on the sidelines of his visit to FC Porto Academy where he had been invited to interact and inspire budding footballers at their Borrowdale base yesterday.
FC Porto Academy is a project founded by local business man Colbert Chimedza of 4May International in partnership with the Portuguese football giants FC Porto late last year.
Ndlovu is in the country following the Premier League Trophy exhibition in Harare on Thursday.
“Talking about the national team, just look at what we have at Liverpool, look at what we have at Newcastle, look at what we have at Luton. We can have a whole team from number 1 to number 30 from Europe which means the coach has a simple task of bringing them together. But it will be unfair to talk about players based outside the country only,” said the 51-year-old football legend.
“There good players in the Dynamos set up and there are good players in the Highlanders set up. I have been trying to follow closely our PSL. Here we have teams that have improved immensely. Look at where Chegutu Pirates are: it shows that someone invested in our sport. I think we should look at local players first and then blend them with international players.
“We must appreciate people like him that give back to the community, especially the kids. It helps to take them off the streets because there are kids from less priviledged backgrounds here. I would appreciate it if more people with Mr Chimedza’s heart and capacity can come forward and do similar projects in our communities,” he added.
Despite being based in Borrowdale, FC Porto Academy currently has over 150 children both boys and girls from areas such as Norton, Highfields, Mufakose Budiriro, Dzivarasekwa, Chitungwiza and Goromonzi among other places.
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Chimedza gave an insight into the project which involves a top European FC Porto.
“FC Porto Academy is a project that we started late last year. It started as a camp. We invited two coaches from FC Porto in Portugal to come and have a camp with us training children from St Johns College. From there they saw that we have a lot of talent which should be nurtured when we thought of bringing them to an academy or a school. Then in October last year we launched the school.
“The idea is to take disadvantaged children from the streets because we have kids coming from as far as Norton Highfields, Mufakose, Budiriro, Dzivarasekwa , Chitungwiza and Goromonzi. Some of these kids are very talented but are disadvantaged so we thought it was a good idea for us to give them the platform to showcase their talent and give them the necessary support that they need. We are supporting some of them with school fees and some with training kits.
“We also have a girls’ team because they are also affected by drug abuse and teenage pregnancies. We report directly to FC Porto this is why you saw two weeks ago we had coaches from FC Porto that came to support us with this project,” he said.
