A letter from Power

The Corona Virus has posed a serious challenge in the footballing community, more especially on club owners. Sponsors aren’t generating enough money so they shun away from making commitments. This has left teams in the lower leagues reeling and barely staying afloat. One such team is owned by Zakhele Thwala, owner of Power United FC. Here’s a letter from Power as he gives us his background in football and the challenges his team faces:

Good day

My name is Zakhele “Power” Twala born in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, Paulpietersburg at Dumbe. I grew up loving and playing football but coming from a disadvantage community background hindered the progress. However, that’s where I discovered a vision to open a well functional youth develop football club in order to unearth youngsters and give them a platform to play football at an advanced level.

In 2011 i was fortunate to open a youth development team named as Power United Football Club, focusing on the youth from under 11, 13, 15 and 17 at Mapleton in Gauteng Province.

Therefore, i saw a gap to also involve other communities teams to participate in competitive football by establishing a Future Tournament in 2016, that aims to inspire young talent and give them an opportunity to be scouted by the Premier Soccer League (PSL) teams.

Additionally, Power United Football Club in correlation with Future Tournament has managed to produce two players namely Yamkela Phalane who recently signed with Amazulu Football Club and represented the national team under 17 “Amajita” during the COSAFA cup in 2019. As well as Kgalalelo Mogantane who joined SAFA Transnet School of Excellence.

I will continue to empower the youngstars to fulfill their dreams and this will aid them to be away from drugs and substance abuse that destroys our local community areas.

Kind Regards

Zakhele Twala

Power Twala gives us the challenges faced by self funded development clubs.

Since the Covid pandemic started , many armature sports teams have seen challenges that led to many being defunct. Challenges of creating a safe environment for the sport. From training to participation in tournaments and leagues. Observing the protocols set for dealing with Covid 19 spread , has been the ultimate challenge. Transportation of players , acquisition of masks; sanitisers and further education of the protocols to the technical team and the players.

As Power United FC we did a study on how best we can observe the protocols. We found that most of them we couldn’t achieve. So we did the basics. We bought sanitisers. We also divided players training days and times as to manage the number of players at the pitch for each session. We changed our mode of transportation from taxis to Bakkies as they offered good ventilation. The technical team was key to the application of these regulations. It has not been a good journey but we tried to make the most of what we can. This is the only way we can be sure that , we control and manage the rise in drug and alcohol consumption here in our township.

With so much love and passion for the sport, it is safe to conclude that the development of soccer is in safe hands. Times are hard, we understand, but with the right sacrifices sponsors could find innovative ways to come on board and help with the moulding of our future stars.