NPL 2024/25 welcomes four new teams

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Four teams will be making their debut appearance in the National Premier League (NPL) when the fourth edition of Zimbabwe’s top-flight club competition gets underway mid-June.

Harare Metropolitan side Rangers are among the first-time participants together with Strikers from Mashonaland East, Rimuka from Mashonaland West and Knights from Masvingo.

They are part of the 14 teams vying for the coveted silverware in the 2024/25 campaign.

Harare Metropolitan had defending champions Takashinga Patriots 1, Takashinga Patriots 2, Gladiators and Rangers securing their places in the NPL directly from the province’s own main league, while Rainbow qualified via the playoffs.

Bulawayo Metropolitan’s guaranteed berths were taken up by Amakhosi and Queens Sports Club, with Bulawayo Athletic Club joining them from the playoffs.

Manicaland, Masvingo and Midlands each had one spot, with Westside, Scorpions and Mbizo earning direct qualification from those provinces respectively.

Strikers, Knights and Rimuka complete the line-up after coming through the playoffs.

The debutant teams are all excited and looking forward to making their mark in the main club cricket competition in the country.

Rangers coach Gray Brent said: “We are very, very excited about getting a ticket to play in the NPL. It’s certainly a great privilege and honour – and we certainly didn’t think in our first season we would do that.

“For the development of our club, it’s really good, we have seen some young kids come through and hopefully we are coming to a stage where we can add more and more people to the development programme. It’s nice to see we have been having a lot of interest in our club and a lot of people coming to trial out which has been great.

“To be honest, I am not setting anybody a target. I just love us to just go in and do the best we can. We have to understand this is our first campaign, so we have to be realistic in sort of what we expect. I expect that we will hopefully win more games than we lose and that’s the sort of target that we are looking forward to.

“But I’m really interested to see how we do. We have got some exceptional players who have signed up for us and it’s going to be an interesting time.”

Rimuka coach Adam Chifo said: “We are very much excited about playing in the highest club league in the country. It is indeed a milestone for a small town like Kadoma.

“Nothing beats playing in the highest club league in the country for Rimuka, looking back at our humble beginnings, and it is indeed a dream come true for all of us.

“We believe in doing our best every outing and letting the results take care of themselves. For us, the sky is the limit. We have our eyes fixed on the number one spot but we will take each game as it comes.”

Strikers chairman Godfrey Kaswa said: “We are very excited about playing in the NPL. For the last five years the team has put in a lot of hard work and has done exceptionally well.

“Qualifying for the NPL on its own is such a huge achievement. We aim to continuously develop the boys’ talent. Most of them got some game time in the recently concluded Associate games and getting an opportunity to play against some top sides is great for them and others.

“For this campaign our aim is top six.”

Knights captain Joe Khoma said: “We are very excited to be in the NPL this season. We obviously worked really hard for it and we feel as if it has really paid off.

“NPL for us means we are now in the big league in terms of competition. It means we get to compete against the best in the country and our very young squad can finally be recognised and get exposure and experience to one day be in the national team.

“Top eight is our goal in our inaugural season. We have a plan to achieve this and we are setting ourselves small targets as our strategy for long-term growth.”