adminarrangements for their World Cup qualifier against Guinea.
Eddie Chivero, the ZNSSA Southern Region leader, told The Saturday Herald yesterday that the Zifa board had failed and the time had come for them to renounce their leadership and call for an election where new leaders could be thrust into office to serve football.
The Warriors failed to travel to Guinea, as scheduled on Thursday, because Zifa had not secured enough air-tickets for the entire delegation.
The association then released a statement late on Thursday saying the trip had been rescheduled for yesterday.
But the Warriors were still stranded in Harare yesterday, amid reports that they would leave early this morning with a truncated squad.
Zimbabwe coach, Klaus Dieter Pagels, has already slammed the association for the shambolic manner they organised this tour of duty and said football, in this country, would not advance as long as such poor management strategies were used.
Chivero, a former team manager of the Zimbabwe Under-20 side, said the time had come for Zifa to step down.
“I think the Zifa board should do the honourable thing and resign and by doing so they will save themselves a lot of embarrassment and they will also help our football start on another leaf and we can move forward,” said Chivero.
“It’s sad that three years after they came on board we are still having these problems and there is no hope that they will end soon.
“If the Zifa board cannot run the Warriors, what then is their mandate if I may ask because every board is measured, in terms of success or failure, by how the national team performs in its international commitments?
“Only last Sunday we had a World Cup game at home where the people paid US$5 for the cheapest ticket and there was quite a good crowd, especially given that the team was virtually out of the race for the World Cup. Where did that money go if some of it is not being used to finance the team to go to the next World Cup qualifier, which is happening just a week later, and why are we no longer getting a breakdown that so many people came into the stadium and so much was raised?
“Why did we charge US$5 for the cheapest ticket if we didn’t want to raise money for the team to travel to Guinea this week?
“There are so many questions and they all want answers but, sadly, no one from Zifa has been bold to tell us what is happening.”
Chivero said he was surprised that Zifa were finalising a deal to engage Pagels on a full-time basis when they can’t even find money to send him to coach only his second away game in the World Cup qualifiers.
“The last time I read something on football, Ndumiso Gumede was saying that he was changing his mind and now wanted a second term in office because he had been given a post at Caf,” said Chivero.
“My question to him now is that are we putting you in office so that you serve the interests of Caf or you serve the interests of the Warriors and football development at large?
“When you read such statements you can see that our football leaders have lost it and don’t have local football at heart anymore and they are more concerned about advancing their interests at Caf or any other international organisations.
“Where was Gumede, who now wants another four-year term, this week when the Warriors were in trouble, when they could not get enough money to fly, what did he do as the leader given that he is the acting president of Zifa?
“We talk about Pagels failing, about our players being not good enough, but how do we think they can do well working under these conditions? You can bring the best coach ever but I can tell you that we will still be beaten all the time because the conditions are not right.”
Chivero said there was an uproar in South Africa last week, simply because their team missed a flight from Yaounde to Douala, when they had already arrived in Cameroon, while here it was business as usual, even when the Warriors have failed to travel as scheduled.
“If you compare what happened to Bafana Bafana, the reaction to that, and what is happening to the Warriors, and the lack of reaction to all this because we are used to seeing things that way, then you understand why our neighbours are flying and we are down right now,” said Chivero.
Online Reporter