Online Reporter
ZIFA president Nqobile Magwizi was asked why Zimbabwe had not entered the Young Warriors in the COSAFA Under-20 tournament. He spoke for three minutes and 17 seconds about leadership, unpopular decisions, consultation, transformation and the bigger picture. He asked football stakeholders to give his executive “the benefit of doubt”, but the basic question went unanswered. Why is Zimbabwe not going to Mauritius?
ZIFA says this wasn’t a registration mistake. The executive consulted widely, considered the issue and deliberately decided not to enter a team. That makes the decision harder to defend because, after all that consultation, Zimbabwe still hasn’t been given a convincing explanation.
The COSAFA tournament isn’t another friendly. The champions and runners-up qualify for the 2027 CAF Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana, where the top four teams will earn places at the FIFA Under-20 World Cup. By not entering COSAFA, ZIFA also ended this group’s chance of reaching the African finals and the World Cup.
Some of the players will be too old by the next qualifying cycle. Administrators can wait for another tournament, but the players cannot. Magwizi is right that leaders sometimes have to make unpopular decisions, but the issue here is the quality of the decision. This was a terrible one.
ZIFA has since appointed an Under-20 coach and unveiled its Dream 2030 development pathway. Both moves are welcome, but they don’t change what happened when the COSAFA entry had to be made. The appointments came too late to save this qualifying cycle.
In announcing Dream 2030, Magwizi acknowledged that national teams had previously operated separately, with coaches and players being sought when competitions were already approaching.
That account confirms the planning failure behind the decision to miss Mauritius. ZIFA wasn’t ready when the entry had to be made and then used its own lack of preparation to justify keeping the team at home.
Magwizi now says Under-15 identifies, Under-17 develops, Under-20 prepares, Under-23 transitions and the senior team performs. It is a sensible model, but what are the Under-20s preparing for when ZIFA has already denied them the COSAFA qualifier?
Zimbabwean football has needed generation-to-generation planning for years. Announcing that pathway after abandoning a generation doesn’t repair the damage. Dream 2030 may offer something to the players coming behind, but it cannot return this opportunity to the current Under-20s.
It also leaves ZIFA with another question to answer. What plan was in place when the COSAFA entry had to be submitted?
The ZIFA executive has been in office since January 2025 and the competition didn’t arrive without warning. It sits on a known regional calendar. At the start of this year, Magwizi promised early preparation, predictable calendars and clear technical direction.
He said Zimbabwe had COSAFA competitions across all age groups and needed to be competitive in every space.
The immediate task was to appoint a coach, identify the players, prepare them, find the money and enter the tournament. ZIFA failed to do that in time.
ZIFA initially said it didn’t want to enter tournaments merely to fulfil fixtures. It wanted teams to have properly identified players, adequate preparation and a clear technical programme. If those things were missing, that was ZIFA’s failure. It wasn’t a reason to punish the players.
Describing this qualifier as another fixture that Zimbabwe could enter merely for participation also cheapens its importance. Competition is part of development. Players improve by facing opponents, handling pressure and learning what international football demands. Teams don’t prepare for tournaments by avoiding them.
ZIFA understood this in 2025 when it deliberately fielded a largely Under-17 side at the Region 5 Under-20 competition. Magwizi said the younger players had been given early international exposure to speed up their development as future national-team contenders.
Those boys should have provided the core of the current Under-20 pool. If they were the future in 2025, their time has arrived. Where are they now, who has been monitoring them and what was the point of giving them early exposure only to deny them the next stage of competition?
Zimbabwe also reached the semi-finals of the 2024 COSAFA qualifier. The Young Warriors topped their group before drawing 2-2 with Zambia and losing 6-5 on penalties. They came within one shootout of qualifying for the Under-20 AFCON.
ZIFA wasn’t starting from nothing. It had players from recent junior national teams, schools and academies, young talent emerging at domestic clubs and a diaspora pool.
The BancABC ROOTS Impact Programme is an important investment in Under-14 and Under-16 football, but it cannot excuse the abandonment of players already at Under-20 level. Those players cannot become 16 again or wait for the younger groups to grow up. ZIFA must build for tomorrow without discarding the players it has today.
The ROOTS programme promises a pathway from schools and communities into the national teams. That promise means little if players reach Under-20 level and discover that their country has not entered the continental qualifier.
For one of those players, Mauritius could have brought a first national cap, the attention of a scout or the beginning of a professional career. For ZIFA officials, there will always be another meeting, another strategy and another qualifying cycle.
Magwizi also complained about “continual haggling” over the executive’s decisions. This isn’t haggling. It is accountability. Zimbabwean football doesn’t belong to the ZIFA executive, and supporters have every right to ask why their country has voluntarily stepped away from an African tournament and a possible World Cup place.
If the problem was money, ZIFA must say so. If the entry deadline was missed, it must admit it. If this was a technical recommendation, the reasons must be made public. Instead, Magwizi gave the country a lecture on leadership and asked people to wait for the bigger picture.
Zimbabwe are six-time COSAFA Under-20 champions, yet twelve of the region’s 14 associations will compete in Mauritius without them. The Young Warriors will watch from home, not because Zimbabwe lacks players, but because its football leaders chose not to enter a team.
Dream 2030 may eventually improve the pathway, but it cannot give this generation back the opportunity ZIFA has taken away. Leaving those players at home isn’t development.
It is a planning failure dressed up as strategy.
