‘CLEAN UP YOUR ACT NOW’

Fatima Bulla Sports Reporter
ZIFA have been ordered to clean up their act or risk Government intervention to force the association to address the crisis that has trapped the national game in a quagmire and left the Warriors in international isolation for the next two years.
The Sport and Recreation Commission has also come under fire and could be dissolved as part of Government efforts to arrest domestic sport’s stunning decline and open a new leaf, pregnant with life and success, for sport.

The Sports Commission angered Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Andrew Langa when only one Sports Commissioner turned up for the indaba yesterday.
“I (can), before the end of this meeting, dissolve the SRC, especially for their failure to come to this important meeting,” Langa thundered.
“There can never be any other business that’s (more) important than this one.”

Langa said the Government was concerned about the poor corporate image of Zifa which has resulted in negligible financial support being injected into the coffers of the association.

Langa was speaking at a football indaba where the Government, Sports Commission, Zifa and the corporate world where supposed to meet at the Zifa Village yesterday.

But the magnitude of the sponsors’ indifference to Zifa right now was put into perspective by the fact that only one of the 18 corporates which had been invited to the indaba chose to attend the meeting. There were fears on Wednesday that the big indaba had been hastily convened and might not cater for a wider spectrum of stakeholders with those that sent invitations keeping away a number of journalists perceived to be critical of Zifa.

Warriors coach Ian Gorowa did not attend the indaba and last night told The Herald that he was never informed about the meeting where his absence was questioned.
Some of the game’s regional leaders were also not invited to the indaba.

At the moment the nation is still coming to terms with the Warriors’ exit from the African Cup of Nations qualifiers following a draw against Tanzania early this month.

There was a huge outcry from scores of fans calling for the Government to intervene and suspend the Zifa board in the wake of the Warriors’ fall, in a preliminary round of the 2015 Nations Cup qualifiers, the first time the national team has failed at the first hurdle.

Langa resisted the temptation, and pressure, to wield the axe, something that has been done by many Governments from around the continent after their Football Associations came short of expectations, saying that he was concerned about the consequences that will come with Fifa’s reaction.

The world football governing body have a tradition of suspending countries, who dissolve elected FA leaderships, from the international football family.
Langa said the lack of a sound policy thrust has manifested itself in a negative unpatriotic practice among the players at all levels of the game.

“Government has to date committed the largest amount of sport support to soccer, needless to say that it is the poor corporate image of Zifa that has kept away the largest source of funding from the public,” Langa said.

“You have to clean up Dr Dube and your board or you will risk government intervention.”
Langa bemoaned the lack of proper junior structures.

“It is also clear that football has no strong foundation, particularly in this country. The link with the youth at development level is not visible.
“Talent identification and talent nurturing is completely absent.

“The efforts of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education as the most viable domain of youth development of football are not being fully utilised by Zifa
“We bring in players who do not know each other for a week and expect that they play a game that is related. I want to challenge our SRC and Zifa that let’s work together with the Minister of Education to identify this talent.”

He said Zifa does not have the critical mass to take Zimbabwe football to a greater level.
Langa said the challenges of inadequate resources, image challenges owing to the Asiagate match-fixing scandal, huge debts, deteriorating national teams’ performance, absence of bankable strategy on football development and growth from grassroot level have remained the same problems tabled by Zifa at the 2012 indaba with the Government.

“We can never communicate through the media. I believe that corporates are committed but they will not come in because of what we say in the media,” said Langa.
“Today we do not have Econet sponsorship because of some of us here.”

Premier Soccer League chairman Twine Phiri, in his capacity as CAPS United boss, was at the heart of the boardroom wrangle that forced Econet out of domestic football sponsorship after the Green Machine went to bed with NetOne.

Phiri is a member of the Zifa board. Primary and Secondary Education Minister, Lazarus Dokora, said Zimbabwe was blessed with a lot of talent but has not been able to tap into that talent.

“Football plus any other sport should be introduced at a tender age,” said Dokora.
“You need 8-10 years to reach optimum performance. This implores that we cannot afford to ignore junior development in our programmes.
“My ministry is the backbone of junior sport development and we stand ready to work with Zifa and all stakeholders in this regard.

“We are in the process of reviewing the curriculum and sport as one of the psychomotor activities shall be an integral part in all schools through physical education.
“Sport shall have the same weighting with any other academic discipline. As we go to implement these changes we shall seriously require the services of Zifa since they are the custodians of football in this country.

“We will also be working with the association of National School Secondary Heads and the National Association of Primary School Heads as these bodies require guidance from Zifa and SRC.”

Chairperson of the parliamentary portfolio committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Temba Mliswa, said there was need for a mindset change in sport.
“Sport is now professional. Where is Zifa in coming to say this is where we want soccer to go? We tend to want to achieve more but the fundamentals are not there,” said Mliswa.

“Yes we want to go to CHAN and win, to the Olympics and win medals. You bring them, you groom them, you invest in them, so what investment have you brought in them?

“There are two keys ministries not here, the ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education which is where the tertiary institutions are who should come up with specialists in football.

“But before that there has to be the Ministry of Finance. Where is the Ministry of Finance? Do they understand the importance of sport and how it is going to contribute to the fiscus?

“Look at the amount of money English Premier League players earn. One player is worth three ministries budget here.”
Zifa president Cuthbert Dube said his association’s main challenge has remained limited funding. Dube said Fifa had agreed to second a consultant from the organisation to help in marketing strategies for the local game.

“We are also going to sign an agreement this evening (last night) with Fifa through which they will give us money to build a head office.
“We want to build an executive building in Alex Park. We will also get another grant from Fifa in September so we are looking at having another building in Bulawayo,” Dube said.