adminThe Confederations Cup is the dress rehearsal of the World Cup and is staged a year before the global soccer showcase.
South American soccer giants Brazil will host the 2014 edition of the World Cup and will also host the Confederations Cup, which is a tournament that is contested for by the respective continental champions.
South Africa, who were the hosts of the first World Cup in Africa, staged the 2009 Confederations Cup won by Brazil .
But in a major vote of confidence in Dube’s administrative capacity, the Zifa boss was named as one of the members that will be tasked with organising the Fifa Confederations Cup.
Despite a host of problems rocking the association, Zifa have enjoyed a lot of goodwill from Fifa since Dube took over as president in March 2010.
His latest appointment onto the key organising committee of the Confederations Cup is testimony of that goodwill.
It also vindicates Dube against his fiercest critics some of whom have been questioning his ascendancy to the Zifa presidency.
Fifa’s appointment of Dube to the organising committee appears to have sent a bold message of the world soccer governing body’s confidence in the Harare business executive.
Zifa played host to a high-powered Fifa delegation led by its president Sepp Blatter in July last year.
Dube’s appointment was revealed in a letter sent to the Zifa president by Fifa secretary-general Jerome Valcke.
“Following the announcement by the Fifa president at the 61st Fifa Congress in Zurich on 31 May and 1 June 2011, the composition of the Fifa standing committee has been revised and completely restructured.
“In this connection we are very pleased to inform you that you have been appointed as a member of our organising committee for the Fifa Confederations Cup.
Please accept our sincere congratulations on this nomination.
“We will inform you about the date of the next meeting in due course… we wish you success and enjoyment in this new role at Fifa and look forward to welcoming you in Zurich,” wrote Valcke.
Dube was naturally excited at having been honoured by Fifa and remained hopeful that his appointment would open avenues for more Zimbabweans to be inducted onto the world soccer body’s various sub-committees.
“I think it means a lot and shows confidence in our administration by Fifa.
“Fifa have seen what we are trying to do to restructure Zifa.
“The Goal Project at Zifa Village is up and running and it will be handed over to us sometime next week.
“It also fits in very well with my manifesto when I came and said we had to ensure that we restructure Zifa and put our football on the map.
“In terms of governance and administrative skills Fifa is seeing it and we are going to make this year a year of reconstruction.
“We will dwell more on football development and ensuring that we resource our technical division and have more coaches going out there to identify the talent that is abundant in this country
“This is a very pleasing appointment and it shows that when we go to these Fifa meetings we are not just there to make up numbers but we also we make business contributions and they are noticing it. We are also going to send nominations of our candidates by March this year so that we are represented at Cosafa, Caf and now Fifa have started the ball rolling and we hope we can have more numbers on those bodies and make our contributions,” said Dube.
Online Reporter