It was all jubilation and smiles as Musina D Boys Football Club were crowned the soccer champions of the Musina Annual Winter Games. D Boys FC took the crown after beating Bear Wolves 2-1.

They received R4 000 as their prize money, while the Man of the Match, Alston Kapinga, received a hamper from Absa Bank.

Mayor Carol Phiri congratulated the winning team and said the municipality was impressed by the standard of the competition, which was gradually improving on a yearly basis.

“Musina Municipality is very proud to host this annual event which aims to discover and nurture young sporting talent here in our municipality. The importance of sports in the life of young people is valuable and goes much further than the basic answer that it keeps kids off the streets. It does in fact keep young people off the streets, but it also instills lessons that are essential in the life of a human being.”

Phiri said thorough sports, people can learn values like discipline, responsibility, self-confidence, sacrifice, and accountability. “It is up to the municipality, parents, teachers, sports teams, and schools to help mold, develop, and instill these qualities into the lives of young people.”

She added that the winter games sports programmes will take a new direction from next year. “We acknowledge that there have been shortcomings in relation to the running of these games during the past. We have developed a policy that will assist us to run these games according to basic rules. This policy will be implemented in next year’s competitions – where we will focus on young people – especially those of school-going age.”

She said after the implementation of the policy next year, the municipality should be able to stand up and look back with pride and show the world that it had indeed developed talents like Lesley Slow Poison Manyathela. “We will also review how we award the successful teams as from next year as we will be looking at giving out prizes that will add value to the talents of the young participants.” 

She said sports provide many positive opportunities for the community, especially school children. “Good sportsmanship provides guidelines that can be generalized to classroom and lifelong achievement. It also teaches children to function in a competitive society.”