Leemisa Thuseho
THE National Women’s Football Committee will next week start distributing to women’s developmental teams across the country.
This after the Lesotho Football Association (LeFA) this week handed over the equipment it purchased for the women’s football committee. The equipment was handed over by LeFA at its premises in Maseru.
The equipment includes a full set of jerseys for each team, bibs and soccer balls. LeFA spent M426 000 on purchasing the equipment.
Speaking at the handover, LeFA technical director, Leslie Notši, said 81 women’s soccer development clubs will benefit from the initiative.
He said the 81 teams were the only ones that had been registered by the 2019/20 soccer season across the 10 District Football Associations (DiFAs). The said clubs are the only ones that also participated in the developmental leagues.
“This equipment will be distributed to women’s developmental team that are registered with our DiFAs in all the 10 districts,” Notši said.
The initiative is part of LeFA’s three-year project dubbed Women’s Football Relief Plan. In the project, LeFA is using the funds that were released by FIFA in 2020 to cushion women’s football from the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, LeFA resolved not to give the money to the clubs all at once but to come up with three- year projects and programmes aimed at enhancing the growth of women’s football from the developmental level up to the national teams.
“We resolved not to give the teams cash but rather use it to develop women football in the country. The teams are not benefiting only through the equipment but there are many programmes that cater for coaches and officials’ education, grassroot football development, competitions, administration as well as for all our national teams,” Notši added.
He said that since the 2019/20 season, the number of fully registered women football team has increased from 81 to 318. However, they are only giving the assistance to 81 teams because the new teams are yet to compete in their district leagues.
The 81 teams started receiving the equipment last year.
On welcoming the equipment, National Women’s Football Committee president, Baholo Motene, said it was a huge step towards boosting the growth of women’s football.
“We are very happy with the equipment, and we believe this will help the growth of women football in the country,” Motene said.
She said lack of equipment was one of the factors that hinder the growth of football and that they believe the availing of the equipment will also results in attracting more women into the sport.
On his part, LeFA secretary general, Mokhosi Mohapi, said the association was striving not to leave behind women’s football.
“We are not sexist; we are working hard to grow both women and men’s football. We want to see women also playing football.
“We must look at the bigger picture. The investment shouldn’t be only about giving equipment but we should also ensure that we have people with knowledge and skills to help the girls,” Mohapi said.
