EDEN University Chief Executive Officer Kelvin Kaunda says the high levels of competition exhibited in the first ever National Division One League was healthy and highly encouraging not only to the participants but also to soccer enthusiasts and League Sponsors.

And Kaunda has revealed that Eden will consider extending the sponsorship package to the next soccer season.

Reviewing the league, Kaunda commended league participants for their resilience amid the ravaging COVID-19.

“For us as Eden University, when we embarked on this sports journey to sponsor this league as a pilot project, little did we know there was this top class desire, commitment and huge appetite of competition among the teams and players in this football basket. Understandably, we know that it has not been easy for most teams financially but even then, nothing stopped them from fulfilling their obligation to travel far and wide to play their beautiful game amid difficulties and that helped to enhance the competition among themselves. For that, we applaud such selfless commitment shown by our football stakeholders,” Kaunda said.

He said even with little resources, teams weathered the storm and gave out their level best to the soccer fans irrespective of their challenges.

“Because we understand such challenges at this level of football, that is why we came in to meet each other half way and share the little that we have and for us as Eden University, what these teams have done is to give us another breath of encouragement to stick with them for yet another coming season,” Kaunda said.

“This season is almost done amidst difficulties of the ravaging Coronavirus Pandemic which affected a lot of economic activities… otherwise, even our originally set out plans for this league were somewhat compromised but despite all that, we hope and trust that the little we had put in as the first ever private University to sponsor the league, helped in one way or the other.”

He said Eden will review the next sponsorship package before an announcement could be made on full details.

“With things being equal as we wait to see things return to normal, we are taking a good review of our next sponsorship package based on the encouraging experience we have had from this 2020/21 soccer season and hopefully see to it that the good plans we had for our football teams will be met successfully in our next soccer calender,” Kaunda said.

Kaunda, who is also Mwembeshi Ward 27 councillor in Matero Constituency, has equally congratulated in advance teams that would sail through to the top flight of Zambian football.

“Let me conclude by congratulating the would be champions on Thursday and those who earned the super league ticket, yes we shall certainly miss their skills, talent and resilience in our second tier league but I urge them not to come back soon but let them go there ( Super League), stay and compete favourably as per the asking demands of the elite league,” said Kaunda.

“Let them represent us well and for those going down to provincial Division One, you played your part under difficulties, we look forward to seeing you bounce back to the Eden family soon as we look forward with open arms to welcome those coming from the Super League.”

Eden University Pumped in K1.1 million sponsorship deal for the 2020/2021 Soccer league and looks set to sign a new deal for the 2021/2022 season.