_: In celebration of Women’s Month, the Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation has partnered with the South African Football Association (SAFA) in the province to host the women’s football festival in Gauteng regions targeting both junior and senior teams.

The preliminary round of the women’s football event started on August 9 and aims to increase the participation of women in sport. It will see each of Gauteng’s six regions assemble a squad in the Under-13, Under-19 and open category.

These teams will then take part at the provincial tournament on the 25th of August in Eldorado Park.

Gauteng Sport MEC Lebogang Maile said the department would work closely with federations to ensure that women in sport were afforded the same level of support as their male counterparts. “Through tournaments such as the women’s football festival we intend to intensifying our efforts to develop future stars that will feed into our national teams and move our sport forward”.

The SAFA regions scheduled to compete in the tournament are Tshwane, West Rand, Joburg, Sedibeng, Ekurhuleni and Metsweding. The provincial games will be used to select squads on each of the three categories that will compete at the national phase of the tournament, on a date to be announced.