Chiefs look to female inmates to help them start a women team, says Jessica Motaung

Jessica Motaung has addressed the irony of Kaizer Chiefs' involvement in a programme to arm female prisoners with football expertise when they don't have a women's team.

Chiefs' marketing director suggested Amakhosi's participation in the twinning project, focused on female inmates at Johannesburg Correctional Centre, a stone's throw away from their Naturena headquarters, on Wednesday was somehow a step towards finally establishing a women's team. 

“It [being involved in the twinning project] is part of our grassroots level in doing that [establishing a women's team],'' Motaung said at the prison yesterday. On the day, academy coaches Dillon Sheppard and Aubrey Mathibe conducted a coaching workshop with the female inmates.

“Building a team is about growing from the ground up... we have other initiatives on the ground that we will be doing and certainly that is a project we are working on. Today is a testimony that we are pulling a stake in the ground. We say women's football is important to us.”

Motaung added that they feel women are always left behind in such programmes therefore they opted to prioritise them.

“A lot of the time, many of these programmes are done with men, hence we wanted to start with women because we want to upskill them more,'' the Amakhosi marketing director said.

Amakhosi collaborated with the department of correctional services and Fifa Foundation in this programme, aimed at rehabilitating women offenders through football coaching lessons.

Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis also addressed the inmates.

Ellis believes Chiefs having a women's team would take women's football in SA to greater heights, more so by attracting sponsorship. The Banyana coach also urged society to embrace the rehabilitated inmates upon returning.

“I've been saying this all along, Chiefs might not be doing well on the football field but they are still a top team in the country. They have so many fans and them having a women's team would attract more sponsors on board...the game would be alleviated,'' Ellis said.

“I hope that the community and everybody can embrace them when they go back as they will be trying to impart the knowledge they'd have got from this programme. Through this, they can get opportunities and create opportunities for others.''

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