EDITORIAL | Kaizer Chiefs have finally got it right with a women’s team ― Pirates and others to follow?

It took a while, but Kaizer Chiefs have finally got it right establishing a bona fide women’s team.

Previously, Amakhosi, like arch-rivals Orlando Pirates, ‘outsourced’ having a female side just to fall in line with a Confederation of African Football (Caf) regulation that otherwise would have seen them banned from competing in continental interclub competitions.

Last week Amakhosi launched the long-awaited Kaizer Chiefs Ladies.

They opted against buying the franchise of a club in the very much semi-professional, topflight Hollywoodbets Super League side. Chiefs opted for a team that will compete in the Sasol Women’s League, the amateur second tier that consists of more than 140 teams in regional sections across the nine provinces. The aim is to win promotion ‘the right way’ and build themselves into a competitive outfit in the top tier.

Chiefs’ sporting director Kaizer Motaung Jnr admitted at the launch that the women’s team had been “a long time coming” and he was right. His view has been long shared by the footballing community in South Africa and the club’s supporters.

Amakhosi used to be the club that paved the way in ideas, professionalism, finances and adopting new approaches. Their ceding of that to the Motsepe family’s mega-wealthy Mamelodi Sundowns is displayed in the Brazilians men’s team’s huge success as a competitive force in continental football and as eight-time successive Betway Premiership champions, while Chiefs have won a dismal one trophy in the last 10 years.

Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies have brought more glory to Downs and set standards of success in women’s club football, winning the Hollywoodbets League six times in a row and lifting the Caf Women’s Champions League trophy in 2021 and 2023, finishing as runners-up in 2022.

So Chiefs are a little behind the curve starting a women’s team now. But they have started.

They might decidedly play second fiddle to the Brazilians now in men’s football, but Amakhosi remain the largest-supported club in South Africa by far, have the best facility in the country at the Kaizer Chiefs Village and certainly have the resources to bring a worthy challenger to Sundowns Ladies in women’s club football.

Let’s hope Chiefs put plenty of those resources into nurturing their fledgling women’s team. It seems certain, given the brand, to be a hit with supporters.

Let’s also hope Pirates do not take too long rectifying the anomaly they are now the only ‘big three’ club without a legitimate women’s team ― so far they have also outsourced for Caf compliance reasons.

And let’s hope that not just Pirates, but many more Premiership and second-tier sides, follow Sundowns, Chiefs, TS Galaxy Queens and University of Pretoria FC establishing women’s teams that can make the Hollywoodbets Super League genuinely professional and resourced by clubs with good budgets and facilities, and ultimately benefit Banyana.