20 November 2023 – SAFA Technical Director Walter Steenbok began his visits to Local Football Associations (LFAs), on Monday, 20 November 2023 to launch the U15 Girls Inter-LFA Leagues.
SAFA Waterberg (Limpopo) was the first stop where the five regional representatives were in attendance for the launch.
SAFA Technical Committee Chairperson and Provincial President Jack Maluleka opened the days proceedings and thanked all the Regions who attended the launch.
SAFA Technical Director detailed the importance of this project, and also gave a detailed presentation of what was expected from the SAFA Regions.
“The league will cater for 400 players and 38 women coacheas across the four provinces. We are looking at the next U17 girls national team. These players are everywhere, hence we need to go to the villages and rural locations to afford them the opportunity to be scouted and developed. This is why this league is important.
The criteria of players that we are looking for are girls born in 2009 – 2010, but this does not mean you cannot unearth talent that is younger than that age group,” said Steenbok.
“We will also be looking to unearth young talented coaches. All these coaches will be encouraged to do CAF D and C in April 2024. In the meantime, an online coaching and mentoring programme will be implemented for all these coaches in the league”
“The U15 Inter-LFA League will be played over four (4) months. We need girls to be playing competitively on a more consistent basis. Our suggestion to the Regions is to have festivals every month,” added Steenbok.
“Each Region must host the other Regions and allow the girls to play strength versus strength. We want them playing against each other on regular basis with each team having at least 20 players. The idea of this project is to create Provincial teams so that we have a database of all the players,” concluded Steenbok.
Nkangala Region in Mpumalanga will host the next launch of the U15 Inter-LFA League.