BY SABELO GWEBU
SOCCER – Celebrated former Sihlangu and Mbabane Swallows Captain Wandile ‘Wawa’ Mazibuko has moved to player development, opening the all-inclusive sports academy.
Named Wingo Sports Academy, the retired defender is working with a former teammate at Swallows Stanford ‘Collymore’ Ncube in the project.
In a nutshell, Wingo Sports Academy is an all-inclusive academy meant to identify and nurture talent in youth in the different sporting disciplines.
It aims to further develop, mentor, educate and grow the cognitive and social skills of young children in Eswatini through sports.
“I have always been passionate about soccer and my wish has always been to plough back to the community by imparting the skills and experience I gained while playing soccer from the Chappies Little League Under-14s to Premier League and also as part of Sihlangu Semnikati. In soccer, you get to learn valuable life lessons even outside of the sport.
“These lessons have helped me as I have been applying them in my everyday life. These are the lessons I want to impart to the young people who are part of the academy,” he said.
Even though the academy will expose children (both boys and girls) to a variety of sporting disciplines, it will start with soccer and grow from there according to Mazibuko.
“Our medium-term goal is to establish a modern youth recreation and resource centre that will provide an all-round sports centre for young people from five to 15 years old,” he added.
The academy will provide fitness training, education, capacity building and will also help expose the young people to seasoned and knowledgeable professionals who will provide coaching and mentoring.
The academy will rope in other former soccer legends with the first being Ncube, who will be assisting with training, coaching and mentoring the children. Another critical aim of the academy is to make sports appealing and interesting.
“With time, we will include other sporting codes such as swimming, hockey, netball, volleyball, athletics, teqball and basketball, to mention a few. We are in talks with some experts in those disciplines who will partner with us,” he said.
The first training session will be held this Saturday at the Ezulwini Sports Ground.
“Wingo Sports Academy invites parents to register their kids and we promise to offer the best training, mentoring and coaching for their kids. We will also go outside the country to expose the kids to other regional and international academies for attachments.” Interested parents can enroll their children for E250 per month and can contact 76683271/76186928 for other payment options.
