Fresh off their Olympic experience in Rio De Janeiro, the Zimbabwe Mighty Warriors will represent the nation again but this time at the premier Confederation of African Football (CAF) tournament – the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon at the end of the year where they have already been drawn into a group most football pundits are considering to be difficult.
 
As usual messages will trickle in towards their departure, with tweets flying over the web space urging the girl child to “make us proud.”

Before the tirades of half-hearted motivational scripts begin, a reality check is in order for both the ordinary citizen and the sports administrators.
 
These ladies who do not have a legitimate league have managed to qualify for two of the three most important tournaments they are eligible for, only failing to book a place at the World Cup.
 
Discussions around the resuscitation of their league have failed to gather momentum as individuals who consider themselves the proverbial custodians of female football in the country are standing as an impediment.
 
The key question writers and voices alike in the sports fraternity seem to be avoiding is that if our girls are managing to qualify for top championships without a regularized league, what would happen if they had one.

Nostalgia hits when we still had clubs like Mufakose Queens churning out players for the Mighty Warriors, one cannot help but rue the present state where a player features for the national team without club affiliation.

The existing clubs are not paying well because of lack of sponsorship. Financial backing is symbiotic and as such the corporate world has to see value in the brand before the thought of committing resources is even within tangible reach.

Recently there was outrage from sports voices over a placard which was displayed at Barbourfields stadium which had text written disrespecting Shona people.

The message was condemned as hate and tribal speech which has no place in sport.

Curiosity however, is raised when the same voices who shunned tribalism are quiet about the plight of the female football player.

Being a sportsperson is as much a job for women as it is for men, as such it is not an ideal setting in civilization that we are represented by part time footballers at continental level.

Mighty Warriors were walloped in Rio De Janeiro, not because they lack talent but they only came short on fitness levels and endurance.

It would be unfair to expect a part time footballer to last the distance, sprinting against opponents who follow athlete fitness regimes.

As cliché as it may sound, practice makes perfect and the girls have been paying for the absence of a practice platform.

One needs to look at their levels of motivation and applaud.

They recently defeated Egypt in a friendly after they were brazenly insulted through the conferment of measly $5 notes on their arrival from the Olympic showpiece.

Had it been any other players, they would have refused to come out of the dugout, but because these ladies are exceptional patriots they braved the heat and went on to win the match.

Social media messages as usual follow each and every victory but are they probing the challenges that lay beneath the strata in our ladies football?

Underpaid athletes with no consistent league but constantly qualify to top level tournaments with minimal resources.

Our administrators are showing inclination towards the male version of the sport and so are the corporates.

If the status quo was to be prescribed by the writer, every football club was supposed to have parallel structures carrying both male and female teams on a mandatory basis.

The Premier Soccer League would simply have dual structures for both women and men, bullet to the local ladies football which is in desperate need of a structure to follow in the country.

Even the so called Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) 'benefactor' Wicknell Chivhayo seems to be swinging in one side as the funds are being splashed on male players, going shopping with Warriors Captain Willard Katsande and other “boys” while the Mighty Warriors are in a questionable financial state.

But how can we question how people use their `hard earned` money?
 
If only we could spare a thought for the female football players domiciled in our country.

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