HARARE - Ideal Sports’ partnership with local sports continues to grow and yesterday the company donated football equipment worth more than $3000 to Black Rhinos’ Under-17 team.
The company, which is owned by Harare businessman Ideal Svovanepasi, presented to Black Rhinos with equipment which includes bibs, cons, soccer boots, two pairs of jerseys, soccer balls among other things.
It was not the first time that Ideal Sports had partnered with the football world, having made similar donations at this year’s inter Catholic games (CASA) hosted by St Pauls Musami. The company has also donated to schools like Gokomere Mission and Louis Mountbatten in the past.
Speaking during the handover ceremony which was witnessed by top Black Rhinos officials, Svovanepasi said his company want to make a difference by providing necessary resources towards nurturing young talent in the country.
“We are donating to Eastlea for now but we are also going to donate to other academies as well. So definitely you will see more donations that are going to come in the future,” he said.
“We realised soccer is one of our big brands at Ideal Sports so we discovered we have so much talent in Zimbabwe and we decided to support the kids.
“Most of the problem that young talent faces is that they don’t have resources, and we are saying we have the resources so let’s make the best out of it.
“For now we have donated to Black Rhinos but more of these will come in the near future to different institutions even in other sporting disciplines. So definitely you will see more donations that are going to come.”
Black Rhinos junior coach Tichaona Mfundisi said:
“This is a very noble gesture from Ideal and as Black Rhinos we really appreciate when the corporate world comes in to support us in our endeavour to develop grassroots football.
“I urge the corporate world and other stakeholders to follow suit.”
Meanwhile, Black Rhinos secretary general Amos Svovanepasi has quashed rumours that team’s Author Tutani faces the chop following poor run of form.
Chauya Chipembere have won two matches and lost five in their opening seven matches and are sitting fourth from bottom with six points in the Castle Premiership.
“There are no changes that will be made in our coaching department. The team is playing well but we are only unfortunate not to win matches. We had a similar scenario last year and we hope things will work well soon,” said Svovanepasi.