Chronicle Editor
Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
LAST weekend saw a big stride being taken to mark return of football activity when topflight clubs, Zifa and the Premier Soccer League finally found consensus and began Covid-19 tests for clubs.
After getting cleared by the Government through the Sports and Recreation Commission to start preparations for action following a seven-month hiatus due to the global pandemic – coronavirus – the first step was to test the players, technical and support staff.
The PSL announced that each club will have 50 people tested before clubs resume training.
Immediately after getting their results, clubs kicked off their training programmes, in preparation for a competition that will be held in a bubble format.
When Zifa got the greenlight to resume activity, part of the conditions for that clearance included testing of players, sanitization of training venues, buses that teams use as well as having competitions played in a bio-bubble.
The bio-bubble concept, involves clubs camping in a safe environment with no contact with the outside world.
Zifa had been pressing for clearance and return of football so that the players get ready for international matches lined up.
FC Platinum who represent the country in the Caf Champions League had a special waiver granted to them to allow the Zimbabwean champions time to prepare for the premier continental’s clubs competition.
In September, Caf announced that the postponed Chan finals will now run between January 16 and February 7, 2021 in Cameroon.
The tournament was originally penciled to run from April 4 to April 25 this year, but authorities had to freeze the 16-team fiesta owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The continental football’s mother body confirmed that the competition – which is exclusively for players plying their trade in their domestic leagues – will begin mid-January into early February 2021.
With time running out, Zimbabwe was staring at a possibility of having players handpicked for the Chan finals without having had adequate time to prepare or even play matches to ascertain their fitness levels. This was going to be disastrous.
The creation of Chan was a response to the desire to revive or strengthen national competitions regularly weakened by a mass exodus of top players who leave their home countries to play for foreign teams which will pay more and get them more media coverage. Starting from the 2014 edition onwards, all of the matches are recognised by Fifa as first team matches.
Cote D’Ivoire played host to the first Chan finals that saw the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) winning the then eight-team tournament in 2009. The competition was expanded to 16 teams for the second tournament, held in Sudan in 2011.
Now that most local players have tested negative to Covid-19 and have started training, they must be responsible and avoid exposing themselves to coronavirus.
Players’ lifestyles during this period must be exemplary and they must abide by health guidelines presented to them so that they don’t spurn the opportunity of being selected for the Chan squad.
Remember, coaches will select players for Chan from the competitions that they play in next month. So contracting Covid-19 when they go to the bubble means one will go into isolation, which is about 10 to 14 days, meaning they would have missed out on the two-weeks “selection” tournament that the PSL and Zifa are working on.
The message on being responsible at a time the world is facing a second wave of coronavirus is not only directed to players, even coaches and support staff need to adhere to health protocols.
Players’ family members and friends also need to have footballers’ interests at heart, putting into thought that maybe being selected for
Chan tournament might open an opportunity for them to move to more lucrative leagues, a break that many yearn for.
Footballers Union of Zimbabwe (Fuz) vice-president Herbert Dick said:
“It’s good that football is returning and as usual, our message to footballers is that they should continue being responsible and be exemplary in everything that they do. There’s Chan around the corner and this is a perfect opportunity for some footballers to make a break to greener pastures as there will be scouts searching for talent.”
The good thing is that footballers seem excited about return of action and are likely to be careful in their daily lives to avoid being part of Covid-19 statistics.
In an earlier interview with our sister paper The Sunday Mail, some of the
Premiership players expressed their joy at the resumption of football.
“It’s a good development for everyone who survives on soccer. We are curious to know what will happen because we can’t wait to play again.
I hope everyone involved in making sure football returns has their hands on the deck.
“As players it has been a painful period for us, it has been difficult to adjust to the new normal. We are used to playing football and this is our profession.
“But Covid-19 is a global disaster and there was nothing we could do other than follow the regulations.
“Now that football is about to return it’s good for everyone, for supporters, players and coaches.
“Waking up and staying at home was becoming boring, we ended up trying to do some things to keep going,” said CAPS United winger, Phineas Bamusi.
Dynamos right-back, Emmanuel Jalai, was ecstatic when he first heard about the news on Friday.
“It is almost eight months now without playing football or training as a group and this is strange for us footballers to go for such a long period off the field.
“I’m used to playing football week in, week out so the return of football will be a good thing for us as footballers.
“The situation was now forcing some players to try out other things just to eke a decent living. It was not easy though as you can see things are tough so we had to adjust to the situation by doing other things to stay afloat,” said Jalai.
Highlanders midfielder, Nqobizitha Masuku said: “Hunger for football is killing us now. Obvious, we are happy with the news because we have been inactive for some time. It would have been a disaster for us if we finished the whole year without playing football. I am hoping everything goes according to plan and we start playing”.
Some of the easy tips for footballers during this time include practicing hygiene, avoid sharing towels or water bottles, avoid unnecessary movement to crowded places and if possible use team bus to and from training.
Clubs must also come up with protocols for players to follow. — @ZililoR
Online Reporter