Zambia head of womens football credits rural talent for growth
11th September 2025
Football Association of Zambia national women’s representative Col Katoba says scouting all around the country, including remote rural areas, has helped them become a strong competitor on the continent.
In the past five years, the Zambia U17 team has won the COSAFA U17 tournament three times (2021, 2024, 2025), finishing as runners-up in 2020 and 2022.
While the U20 women's national team won back-to-back titles in 2024 and 2025 in the COSAFA U20 tournament.
The senior women's national team has participated in two WAFCONs in the last three years, and made their debut in the FIFA Women's World Cup, and also were part of the Olympics.
Speaking to SABC Sport Katoba says she was thrilled when U17 star Ruth Mokoma, who comes from a village was awarded Player of the Tournament at this year's edition of the U17 COSAFA Cup.
"Our football setup was enclosed in the urban areas, and even if it was in the urban area, how far did it extend? So, it was limited to more or less four provinces. We've got ten provinces," Priscilla said.
"We thought we needed to decentralise the management of football in our country to all the 10 provinces because we realised the best footballers can be hidden in the rural areas of our country.
"When we did the decentralisation, we were able to discover players in the deep rural areas. You saw at the COSAFA awards, the Mokoma girls, they come from rural areas, and that's exactly what we wanted."
The Copper Queens also have the most expensive footballers in the world in Rachael Kundananji and captain Barbra Banda.
Banda is also Africa's all-time top scorer in Olympic football history with 10 goals across the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Games.
Katoba adds that it was part of their strategy to dominate across different competitions.
"Whenever you are doing something, you've got a vision, where do you want to go? How do you want to get there? What will be the tools that will be able to drive you to getting that vision done," she explained.
"So, immediately I came on board in charge of women's football in Zambia, I thought, we've got three women's national teams, that's the U17, U20, and the Copper Queens.
"We said we wanted women's football to reach those great heights, like participating in the Africa Cup of Nations, and of course, we thought of crossing over to go to the World Cup. So, we said, being active in all 10 different provinces will assist us in scouting talented players."
