Zimbabwe women's coach granted bail in assault case

Zimbabwe national women’s football team coach Shadreck Mlauzi, who faces two charges of indecent assault, was granted bail on Wednesday.

Mlauzi is alleged to have molested a female member of the technical team on two occasions - the first at the team’s training camp for the regional Cosafa Women’s Championship, which ended in South Africa on Sunday, and the second during the tournament.

Mlauzi had first appeared in court on Tuesday and was asked not to plead and had been remanded in custody.

He is now due back in court on Friday 27 October.

Zimbabwe has just emerged from an 18-month Fifa suspension, with issues of sexual abuse at the heart of it.

The decision by the government-appointed Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) to suspend the board of the Zimbabwe Football Association led to the suspension from world football’s governing body.

Reasons for the SRC's intervention included the need to investigate alleged sexual harassment of female referees by technical staff and a drive to improve the conditions and treatment of women’s national teams.