South Africa’s under 20 Women National Team coach, Maud Khumalo said she is impressed by women who attended the SAFA grassroots football development coaching D licence course currently taking place in KZN’s coastal city of Richards Bay.

Khumalo said it was pleasing to see women showing interest in acquiring coaching badges in the sport and hoped that this will spur more women to take up coaching.

Just like many of her former national team teammates, Khumalo grew up playing football under the mentorship of male coaches from her developmental stages.

She says this must change with more and more women showing interest in coaching. Khumalo said working under male coaches had its own challenges especially for a girl child.

In total, 23 aspiring professional coaches from the King Cetshwayo region registered for this ongoing course, with five of them being female.

“I grew up playing the sport with my brothers,” Khumalo said. “I’m the only girl in a family of seven who chose football but fortunately, everybody at home was very supportive. They backed me to go all the way.

“Their support played a major role in me earning my first national call-up in 1997. However, I couldn’t report for camp because I had sustained an injury. It was only in 2000 when I had the opportunity to don the national team jersey. It was during the 2000 Africa Women Championship where we finished second in the tournament. My debut match was against Reunion. I featured in all of those matches,” said Khumalo.

The national women’s under-20 team coach said having a lot of coaches in the country goes a long way in helping develop the sport at grassroots and will benefit women football.

“This can only benefit the women’s football going forward. I would like to commend the Association for showing the commitment in ensuring that women coaches and aspiring ones are also given the platform to learn and grow to become better coaches in the game.”