What does it take to help Zambian footballers break into Europe’s top leagues?
Kashiya Winford, a football analyst turned licensed agent, is trying to answer that question. As the founder and CEO of Win Sports Agency, he’s focused on building pathways for young Zambian talent to reach the highest level.
In this interview, he shares how he went from analyzing games on local radio to his first international deal, the unique challenges Zambian players face - from visa hurdles to limited visibility - and his vision for the future of Zambian football.
The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for grammar and clarity.
[ Background ]
Well, I’ve never played professional football, but I’ve always had so much passion about the game. You know, growing up as a young boy in Africa, we always get interested in football at some point!
But for me, my family was always encouraging me to focus more on school rather than football. After I completed school, I went to university and had a chance to work in corporate institutions but the passion for football was still with me.
Since I couldn’t play football anymore, I thought about what I can do to contribute to the growth of the game. And I started with analysis - I’m still doing this too - I do football analysis with a national broadcaster in Zambia and in other media houses. So, I think my passion came from the fact that I grew up in an environment where football is played week in, week out and I want to help young players and contribute to Zambian football.
[ How did you go from ‘fan’ to sharing your analysis on national broadcasts? ]
When I was in university, I would always follow football in Zambia. I was going to the stadiums and watching all the Zambian clubs. At one point, I think it was around 2015, one of my friends said, ‘you’re following football so much, you should come through to the studio and talk about it’ and invited me to go to a radio station - that was UNZA Radio.
I remember that was my first time being on air, and it was a good experience. I analyzed football very well, and the guys were happy to see me. I would become a regular, coming on each Saturday for a sports show. I kept going and going and started building my network. Later, other broadcasters saw my work and invited me to go on other radio and TV stations.
[ What motivated you to become an agent? ]
Yeah, overall for me, even if I still do analysis, I always wanted to be someone who can help players. I could see a lot of potential talents, who, because of where we’re born, won’t make it to the top and it always puzzled me, how come these talented players aren’t making it?
When I realized, in the game of football, there are people behind the scenes who help these players to achieve their dreams, who are called agents, I knew I needed to take up this role.
I started researching, studying and networking with other agents and people in the business of football. I sat for my first exams and made it - last year, I attended the FIFA Agent exams and was one of the few who passed the new format.
My first deal in football was in 2023 when I helped a player move from Zambia to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It went great and I was so happy to do that first deal.
I’ve not played football myself and don’t come from a footballing family, so I’ve had to work to build my name and build a brand but my goal is always to help these players to become who they are supposed to be.
"When I realized, in the game of football, there are people behind the scenes who help these players to achieve their dreams, who are called agents, I knew I needed to take up this role"
[ How did you find this first client and convince them to work with you? ]
The player - Agnes Fabiola Banda - is a goalkeeper who’s been on the Zambia national team. We were together in university and we’ve known each other for a long time and have a good relationship.
I also have a very good relationship with TP Mazembe and know a few people at the club, including the technical director at the time (he’s moved on to Simba in Tanzania now) and a few coaches and people in the administration.
When the opportunity popped up, I told her, I’ve got a team in Congo that is looking for a goalkeeper - and TP Mazembe is a big team that is going to play in the CAF Champions League and even reached the final the previous year.
She believed in me because she already knew how passionate I was about football and saw potential in me, so it wasn’t difficult to convince her to work with me. Some people close to her were more skeptical, they said it wasn’t possible - until they saw the paperwork and saw her traveling!
She’s back in Zambia on a top Super League team now and we’re still managing her and have a great relationship.
—^interviewer’s note: It seems like it was an incredible move - she played 24 games, kept 22 clean sheets and won 7 trophies (!)
[ Why did you start Win Sports Agency instead of staying independent? ]
I started Win Sports Agency because I decided I needed to formalize my work, operating as an individual won’t help me, I needed to register as a company. The name came from my name - Winford - and that’s how it started.
After we became fully registered with all the relevant authorities in Zambia, the same year, we did 3 deals - two local deals and another deal for a player who went to play in Botswana.
We also managed to partner that first year with SPOCS, a big German agency. They even came to Zambia and have agreed to come back this year. I have built a good relationship with Sascha Empacher, the CEO.
[ What does a relationship with an agency like SPOCS actually mean? How do you work together or benefit from each other? ]
The actual benefit is that they come to Zambia to scout players. In November, we organized a scouting tournament over 5 days and invited the top academies in Zambia, the academies with track records of producing good players.
We hosted them here and ran a good tournament and they were impressed. I know two boys were picked, unfortunately, one couldn’t make it (to the trial) due to visa issues and the other one went for trials but didn’t secure a contract.
The arrangement between us and SPOCS is we agree to share a certain percentage between us. We’re still working together, right now, we are working on a deal for a Zambia U20 player and a Turkish club - that deal was brought by them, for example.
[ Is it just you at Win Sports Agency or do you have co-founders or employees too? ]
I'm the founder and the CEO, but after establishing the company, I realized that, in life, you can't do a lot alone, you need people by your side, you need friends by your side.
So, I brought in two friends who are now managing directors and helping a lot. We’ve given each a specific role - one is concentrating on women’s football - Zambian women’s football is on the rise. The other does all the media, from the artwork to managing the website or making videos for the players that we put on YouTube. I’m concentrating on men’s football and youth football.
We also have two ladies who are helping us with PR, issuing statements and things like that. So, now we are five.
[ How many players are represented by Win Sports Agency? What is the ‘age range’? ]
So far, we have 16 players. Youth players are, of course, the main goal - that’s also my main focus in the agency - clubs from abroad are looking at players between 16 to 18 with potential. We also work with professionals, usually 20-25 for the local market and the African market.
But - more than size - our main goal, and the main reason we came into existence is, we want to start taking Zambian players to Europe. That’s our main goal.
Of course, we look at this market and we’ve done deals locally, but in the future, we want to take players to top leagues in Europe. We want to see our players playing in the German Bundesliga, the Premier League or other European leagues in the next 5 years.
"we want to start taking Zambian players to Europe. That’s our main goal"
[ How do you identify these players? Are you going to matches and youth tournaments to scout or do they come to you? ]
Mostly, we go by ourselves and scout these players when they are at U16 or U17 tournaments, but we have a very good relationship with most of the top academies in Zambia that are producing players for the Zambian youth national teams.
In most cases, we approach the directors or owners of these clubs and say, ‘I like this player, we’d like to manage them and see if we can market them’. Then we come to a mutual understanding with the club, the parents and the player.
[ Do you ever ‘lose out’ on players that you would like to represent to competing agents? ]
Of course, that's a battle, I can’t deny it!
We’ve lost out on a couple of good players because we are not the top agents, we are not well known. Sometimes in life, for someone to associate with you, they would like to see what you’ve done and what you’ve achieved - they’ll ask you, ‘you want to represent my boy? How many players have you taken to Europe so far?’
If you don’t have a track record, they will often go to someone who has a proven track record. That’s a challenge, but for me, I believe in God and definitely one day, he will give us a player who will make the jump and then everyone will see us and people can believe in us, in Win Sports Agency.
[ Do you also work with or represent coaches? ]
Yeah, we’ll work with coaches too. Recently, we brokered a deal for a Serbian coach to come and coach in Zambian football, but the deal collapsed because of visa issues. We’ve got a few local coaches as well, one in the third tier of Zambian football at the moment.
[ You’ve mentioned a couple of times deals - or trials - falling through because of visa issues - is this the biggest obstacle in helping players go abroad? ]
I think it’s the first challenge, yes. It’s quite difficult, especially when the players are not yet 18 - the FIFA rules state a player can’t move from Africa to Europe until they are 18. But even processing a visa for a boy to travel for a trial becomes very difficult.
Another challenge is simply the fact that most of these clubs are looking for top-quality players, the standard at, for example, Rapid Vienna or Djurgårdens in Sweden, is very high and many of the players with the quality to play there are already represented by one or two big foreign agencies. They’ve done well to expose these boys to such levels and the national team gets to benefit - but I believe it’s now our time for a Zambian-owned agency to rise up and become a big agent.
And the other huge challenge we are facing in Africa is the infrastructure. There are many talented players, but the infrastructure is not as good as in Europe, and that poses a risk to player development and often stops players from reaching their potential.
[ Can you explain this visa challenge in more detail? So, a player under 18 can still travel for a trial but not sign a contract? Is the visa process easier if they are over 18 and have received a contract offer? ]
Yeah, so if a player is 17, he or she can go and train or do a trial in Europe, but they can only sign (a contract) once they turn 18.
When it comes to visa processing, in Zambia, we don’t have so many embassies - for example, if a player wants to go to Poland, we don’t have a Polish embassy in Zambia. So, we have to go to South Africa or Egypt, and that means there's a significant extra cost, not to mention the time it takes for the visa application and processing.
Even the embassies that we have in Zambia - for example, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, United States, Germany, etc, they also take a long time for visas to be processed. Some take 2 or 3 months and it can happen that the transfer window closes before the player is allowed to travel - and that means they need to wait for the next transfer window - or miss out on the chance entirely.
If they receive a contract - and don’t have to go for a trial first - it’s easy and the embassies down here in Zambia can often issue them a visa quickly because they know ‘what’s on the table’. For these guys going on trials, it becomes difficult because they think, what if this is not a genuine reason for this boy to travel and there are also human trafficking considerations and things like that to consider, so that’s why it takes a long time. If the boy is already 18 and the contract is there, they can be there in two weeks or so.
[ Why do you think so many more players are moving from e.g. West Africa to Europe vs Zambia? ]
I like this question. West African countries have gained an advantage compared to Southern African regions like Zambia, South Africa, Tanzania and the DR Congo. It’s not because they have the most talented players, but they have a proven record.
I don’t know if you know what I mean by that. For someone at a club in Europe, it’s much easier for you to go to Senegal because Sadio Mané proved there are top players there. Victor Osimhen is a top striker in the world. When they go to Nigeria, they are confident they can find the next Osimhen.
But if they come to Zambia, they’ll be skeptical and say, which players are proven? Maybe Patson Daka - but he’s not doing well in the Premier League with Leicester City, and they were relegated.
If we can produce these types of talents who go to Europe, to these top leagues and prove their talent, definitely scouts will start to trickle down to Zambia, and the pathways will open. This can only happen if people here in Zambia push and convince people to come down here and take a chance on the talents here. Until then, they’ll just head somewhere in West Africa where their footballers have proven themselves in Europe.
"This can only happen if people here in Zambia push and convince people to come down here and take a chance on the talents here"
[ Do you think Austrian clubs are more open to Zambian players because of the success of Patson Daka and Enock Mwepu in Austria specifically? ]
Yes, because they have seen, as you mentioned, Patson and Enock did very well in Austria - and right now there’s another boy, Kingstone Mutandwa, who’s on loan from Cagliari in Italy with SV Reid and he scored and assisted on his debut. So there’s that traceable experience with players from Zambia, they’ve seen what they can do, and now clubs are actively looking for the next Patson Daka or Enock Mwepu.
A top scout from SK Rapid Vienna is coming to Zambia next month. I know for sure that this is someone who has proven success with identifying players in Africa. I’ve seen that he’s discovered players like Mamadou Sangaré, who was at Rapid Vienna last season and just signed for Lens in France. Bringing this kind of person to Zambia is a great opportunity. I believe life is always about networking. I like to personally network with agents, sporting directors and scouts, especially if they have a good, traceable background in terms of their work.