A Burundian football club has appointed a female coach, marking the first time in the country’s history that a woman is managing a top division men’s team.
Belyse Ininahazwe, 35, will coach AS Inter Star, which finished 13th in Burundi’s Primus League last season, with 29 points in 30 games.
The winner, Bumamuru, had 68 points from a similar number of matches.
Prior to her recent appointment, she worked as the head coach of Academie La Pepiniere, a third-division team in Burundi.
She says her passion for football began at a tender age, given she was born in family that has more male children than female.
More than a decade of playing football
As a professional football player, she featured for La Colombe FC from 2002 to 2016. During her stint at the Bujumbura-based club, she won six trophies, with the last coming in 2015 before her exit the following year.
From 2016, she enrolled for football coaching lessons, and has served as a football manager for nearly seven years.
She says she has trained with men the better part of her football career. That exposure made her to develop resilience and a fearless attitude.
Her passion for football is evident from her Instagram page, where a majority of her eighty-plus posts are dedicated to football. You would see her in tracksuits or in jerseys.
Communications graduate
The mother-of-one says a “good position in the table standings” is what she looks forward to while leading AS Inter Star as head coach.
The club, founded in 1977, has had successful stints in the past, winning the top division title in 1991, 1992, 2005 and 2008. It has also won one Burundian Cup (1990) and one Burundi Super Cup (2011).
AS Inter Star has made two Confederation of African Football (CAF) Champions League appearances (2006 and 2008), and two CAF Confederation Cup appearances (2008 and 2011).
Ininahazwe holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and communications from Bujumbura-based Hope Africa University. She graduated in July 2019.
