Festive football tournament organisers across the country are trying everything possible to comply with the government’s COVID-19 regulations to ensure that they stage incident-free games.
The final of the Snekeneke Pre-Festive Tournament was played in Snake Park, Soweto, over the weekend.
The inaugural football tournament which started on November 14th, attracted thousands of football lovers.
Snake Park has already produced a top football player in the professional ranks. Orlando Pirates forward, Zakhele Lepasa, was born and bred in Snake Park, near Dobsonville.
Football festival games take place in Soweto:
The 23-year-old player scored his first Soweto Derby goal for Orlando Pirates against bitter rivals Kaizer Chiefs, in the semi-final of the Nedbank Cup last month.
Lepasa is the same player who scored the only goal in the 2019 Nedbank Cup final when National First Division side, TS Galaxy, beat firm favourites, Chiefs.
His township has now started an annual football tournament with the aim of producing more professional players.
According to the tournament organiser, Kgomotso Mahlangu, this is also a way of keeping the youth off the streets.
“We are living in a society where there is crime, there’s a lot of negativity. Keeping young children away from the streets, minimising crime by bringing everybody in the grounds and watching what they live which is soccer. We must always keep safe at the same time.”
With the country ravaged by the coronavirus this year, Mahlangu says they needed to come up with something to bring hope to the community of Snake Park.
“It’s been a very difficult year full of negativity, a lot of deaths, a lot of negative things happening. We needed to end the year on a high note to say,’ there’s a lot of negativity, how best can we uplift the community of Snake Park; how best can we ensure that the year ends on a high, the year ends on a positive note?’ And we sat together as fellow friends and peers and we made sure that we came up with this idea.”
The Snekeneke Football tournament was the product of ideas from various community organisations.
Tshepo Lekwape from the Soweto Young Men United says they partnered with various stakeholders.
“We have partnered with various stakeholders throughout the province including our government in ensuring that we organise this tournament. They came with many other things, ideas on how they can assist in ensuring the issue of social distancing, we manage issues of COVID regulations but we know many people due to COVID. They’ve been dismissed from their jobs and things like that so, some of the things that we are seriously looking at is that township economy to make sure that people have something to eat at the end of the day.”
Tournament co-founder, Morgan Seruoe, has thanked the Gauteng government for the role it played in making the inaugural tournament a success.
“The contribution of the government; they donated medals, soccer kits for us. So, the contribution that the Soweto Men United in this tournament is to bring the resources to make sure we host the tournament. So the stakeholders have been really helpful.”
Like many festive tournaments across the country, the Snekeneke Pre-Festive Games hope to attract professional football scouts in future.
EX BUCS TRIO IN KASI ACTION
Rooi Mahamutsa, Sifiso Myeni and Khethokwakhe Masuku in action for Gomora FC in the 2020 Snekeneke Pre-Festive Games in Snake Park – Block 7 Grounds, Soweto
Gomora will take on Shake Everyday in the last 8 on Saturday. Kickoff at 09:00. #FARPost pic.twitter.com/pWRcs7bJI9
— FARPost_ZA (@FARPostZA) December 2, 2020
