Women’s football comes alive in Alex

It’s that time of the year again when women’s football in Alexandra takes centre stage with the JM Busha Women’s Tournament.

The second edition of this prestigious women’s football showpiece is scheduled to kick off on the weekend of 18 and 19 March, with the first-day action at Altrek Sports Complex and the second day to be played at Alexandra Stadium.

The tournament takes on a new dimension that has always been the vision and dream of tournament and Bluebirds Football Academy sponsor, Joseph Mukambi Busha, a Zimbabwean businessman and founder of the Dunkeld-based JM Busha Investment Group.

Busha has always dreamt of establishing a powerful platform for women’s football that would unite teams and players from the community of nations in the southern African Development Community, a 15-member political and economic grouping of countries.

That dream is finally taking shape as two teams in the second edition of the annual instalment of the tournament will come from outside the borders of South Africa. One of the teams is Young Buffaloes from Swaziland who are based in Manzini; and the other hails from Harare, Zimbabwe, known as Flame Lilly Queens.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Alex News, tournament organisers, Andile ‘Size One’ Shawe and Abraham Ramoshaba said they were delighted that the JM Busha Women’s Tournament was finally taking the shape that the sponsor had always dreamt about.

“We welcome our visitors from outside our borders to take part in the tournament for the very first time, so we can build bridges, not just for the teams but for the peoples of the three countries and for the community of Alexandra with its two neighbouring countries,” said Shawe.

Other teams invited to the tournament include Bluebirds as the hosts; and defending champions of the inaugural showpiece, Pull Together, a Tshwane side from Mamelodi, which knocked out the hosts in the quarterfinals of the previous tournament.

The other participants are new entrants of the 12-team tournament and include Banyana ba Alex, a local outfit; Taurus Football Academy from the West Rand, who have just been promoted to the Sasol Women’s League; and Soweto Fabulous from Soweto.

Also participating for the first time are Golden Ladies from North West; Kanatla Ladies from Limpopo, who are Sasol champs in their province; Palace Super Falcons from Thembisa; Coal City Wizards from Mpumalanga, who are also Sasol champs; and another side from Thembisa, Mighty Lovers.

“Our vision is to give an opportunity to most of the ladies teams to participate in the tournament and hence we have rotated the participants this time around. We hope to do this every year in an effort to include everybody,” Shawe said.

Read: Alex football urges City to build them a stadium

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