This past weekend marked a huge milestone for women’s football in the country after sports betting company Hollywoodbets announced a sponsorship deal for the South African National Women’s Football League.
The betting company becomes the first sponsor for the highest league in the country, which is on it’s second season and the league has now been renamed to Hollywoodbets Super League, the South African Football Association confirmed.
“Hollywoodbets has joined hands with SAFA to become the official sponsor of National Women’s Soccer League which will now be known as the @Hollywoodbets Super League,” SAFA tweeted on their official Twitter account.
With the league having wrapped up the fourth round of fixtures, reigning champions Mamelodi Sundowns ladies continued with their dominance in the league after they thrashed Tshwane University of Technology 4-1 in the Tshwane derby to record their fourth straight victory.
Downs ladies head coah Jerry Tshabalala was happy with the win and applauded Banyana Banyana striker Lelona Daweti for her performance.
“I have to be excited and I have to thank the girls because they gave their all. I was not expecting them to come to us with three strikers, I thought they would sit at the back. But as soon as we realised that they coming with three strikers we knew that their defence will be very sloppy at the back. If you could see our first three goals we scored them by playing the ball behind their defence which worked for us with Lelona Daweti upfront it make a huge a difference,” said the Downs ladies coach.
Downs midfielder Chuene Morifi walked away with the player-of-the-match on the day after scoring one of the four goals and thanked her coach continuously telling her to start scoring.
“I’m happy with my performance, first and foremost because I got the goal that the coach has been preaching about. He was telling me that I need to start scoring because all this time I’ve been trying to create chances and I need to start scoring. He always tells me that if I take my chances I can become the leading goal-scorer of the league,” said Morifi.
All results
Coal City Wizzards 5, Golden Ladies 0
University of Western Cape ,3, JVW FC 1
University of Johannesburg 1, Ma-Indies 1
Tsunami Queens 1, Richmond United 1
Bloemfontein Celtic 3, Thunderbirds Ladies 1
Durban Ladies 0, First Touch Academy 4