Online Reporter
Tadious Manyepo
Zimpapers Sports Hub
HERENTALS Queens chief executive officer Loveness Mukura has been silently leading a massive revolution at the Students.
She has successfully advocated for equal wages between the club’s male and female footballers.
Herentals Queens players, who won the Women’s Soccer League championship for the third time in a row last year, have been earning exactly what their male counterparts playing for the team in the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League get.
And all this is courtesy of 28-year-old Mukura, who also doubles as the Herentals Queens captain.
The institution president, Innocent Benza, yesterday said Mukura held a series of meetings with the club leadership and raised pertinent issues surrounding equal pay, and he believes it is that motivation that continues to inspire Herentals Queens to dominate the Women Soccer League circles.
“Yes, I can tell you that Mukura made some huge advocacy that saw us agreeing on equal wages from salaries to bonuses being awarded for both female and male players,” said Benza.
“This has worked magic, especially for the girls who continue to dominate the scene.
“They have lost just two matches over the past three years, and you can just look at this statistic for a good measure of how well the system is working.”
And Mukura wants to introduce exactly that at the national level if she is successful win her bid to clip the ZIFA vice-presidency post in the elections set for January 25.
The watershed plebiscite will for the first time have one of the two vice-presidential posts occupied by a woman.
Mukura, who was endorsed by the Women Soccer League during a meeting held at Yadah Hotel last year, is widely being seen as the ideal candidate to take the stick, and she said she will ensure that pay issues are adequately addressed.
“We have been observing a lot in terms of the national game. We have seen that there is no equal pay structure between females and males at the national level.
“I don’t think that is good. If you look elsewhere across the world, you would find that it’s already the norm, and this is improving female football,” said Mukura.
“We have seen that it works. We use the same system at Herentals, where we have broken new ground where both male and female footballers get equal wages from bonuses, allowances, and salaries.
“That is one fundamental to empower the girl child, and that is the basis upon which the female game can improve and be competitive.
“We will meet stakeholders across the board and ensure that we adopt this everywhere across the country and leagues.”
Mukura said the country has a lot of potential to do well internationally if the right systems are put up.
“One thing that we can all agree on is that we have talented players, both male and female, in this country.
“But talent alone can never be enough. It ought to be nourished by sound policies to realise its full potential,” added Mukura.
“Look, we need to have grassroots and professional academies where the former can feed the latter and the conveyor belt moves like that in an efficient manner.
“This should be for both female and male athletes. Everything should be scientific. We need to develop complete players who need no more improvement but just management at the elite stage. Those are some of the things I think we can easily do when we get into office as a matter of urgency.
“We need grassroots leagues, academy leagues, and semi-professional leagues across the country. This will ensure that we take care of everyone, and football becomes inclusive as it should be.”
Mukura is confident she will take the post in one of the tightest races in the history of ZIFA elections.
daglous masveta
