NWU Vaal confirm partnership with Sekhukhune United

This was confirmed to the public broadcaster by NWU Vaal Football Manager Thomas Thema, on the sidelines of the Engen Knockout Gauteng leg draw yesterday. 

This partnership allowed Sekhukhune to complete their registration for club licensing by the CAF deadline day last Friday. Sekhukhune will play in the CAF Confederation Cup next season and Thema says the partnership is not only limited to the women’s team.

"Yes, we have a partnership with Sekhukhune and it's not only the women but it's also the development itself. We don't want to relegate it to women only but when we approached them because we are the ones that approached them at the end of the season last season to say we are looking for partners," Thema said.

"They are not the first partner we have, if you realise we had a partnership with Sundowns, we had a partnership with Kaizer Chiefs and now we approached Sekhukhune and it came at the right time because Sekhukhune had qualified to play the CAF Champions League. They then saw an opportunity to partner with us. We are still yet to finalise a few things you know, the brandings and so on but in principle, we have agreed and signed contracts."

One of the critical regulations of the CAF club licensing is that a team must have a women’s team or have a written agreement with an existing entity before they’re allowed to register.

NWU Vaal’s women’s team plays in the Gauteng Sasol Provincial League and like the President of University Sport South Africa (USSA) Nomsa Mahlangu had told SABC Sport last week, the academic element is also in this relationship between NWU Vaal and Sekhukhune, according to Thema.

"Ours is also in two forms, we continue to advance for education because the primary business for the university is training and research. We said to them, look in your DDC if there's a player who's doing well also at school bring them to the university, let them enroll," he explained.

"We have done that with Kaizer Chiefs also, so because now we are looking at boys that are local within the Vaal triangle, they will benefit greatly because Sekhukhune is just here and we'll also provide them with sports bursaries."

In this year’s Engen Knockout Challenge, NWU Vaal has only entered the boys’ team but next year Thema says because of this new partnership, they will also be able to bring a women’s team to this tournament.

"We had entered a team before, now we just had a problem because of the age. As you know the university cycle is three years and we got lost in between the three years. We were also looking to survive the Sasol League. So, our focus was there to save the team and then probably next year we will continue," Thema added.

"We had a partnership with the regional ladies' team but it did not go well, so we are hoping to revive such a partnership because if you look at under 18 is mostly grade 12 learners so we will also look at starting a schools' league as a university."