Alex football’s leading light stops burning
ALEXANDRA – Former vice president of the Alex Northrand LFA and United Stars FC's Lusanda Jika has died.
One of Alexandra Northrand Local Football Association’s female leading lights of football has stopped burning.
Lusanda Jika, a former vice president of the Alex Northrand LFA and longstanding secretary of the United Stars Football Club and one of the top female football administrators in the township, died following a prolonged illness at the Edenvale General Hospital yesterday. Jika is said to have been struck by ill health and has been in and out of the hospital and had since lost the use of her legs which prompted the hospital to put her on a wheelchair and news of her death was relayed by the secretary-general of LFA, Malvin Khumalo.
Her health turned for the worst a couple of weeks before her death and she was once again admitted at the hospital and sadly passed on around 2pm on 5 October, said the chairperson of United Stars Sakhile Zulu. Zulu, who recruited Jika to join him in the administration of Stars more than seven years ago, said the club had been dealt a severe blow with the sudden death of Lusanda.
“I am not sure whether we shall ever recover of the devastating blow but that’s the way of life and there is very little we can do,” he said in an interview with Alex News. Stars is one of the most successful clubs in the Alex Northrand LFA and have a team in the current Promotional League that was abandoned as a result of the outbreak of the Covid-19 global pandemic early this year. The team was one of the top five teams in the league which would have seen the winner being promoted to the SAB League, which is a third-tier league to the prestigious Premier Soccer League, and all this work is accredited to her hard and astute leadership and administration qualities.
Zulu said he will be meeting the family of Jika today again and hopes to come out of the meeting with a possible date for funeral arrangements for the ‘Lady of Alex Football’.
