Online Reporter
AS Zimbabwe host the COSAFA Under-17 tournament this month, history has been made.
For the first time on home soil, Video Assistant Referees (VAR) are being used to officiate matches, which began at Norton’s Ngoni stadium on Thursday afternoon and will also be staged at The Heart stadium in Harare.
With 12 Southern African youth teams taking part in the football festival, finally having VAR on our doorsteps, is a moment of pride, a signal that our football is stepping into modern times.
Yet beneath the excitement lies a bigger, more pressing question: do we have the infrastructure to sustain this momentum?
The truth is sobering. Zimbabwe lags behind in sporting infrastructure. Many of our stadiums are now so outdated that they are failing even the most basic continental standards.
Other sport codes, from athletics to basketball, face similar challenges. Facilities are either dilapidated or non-existent. Some have even been turned into anything but sport, which includes being converted into carwash bays, guarded car parks and in some instances tuck shops have sprouted.
And yet, sport remains one of the most powerful tools we have for nation-building, tourism growth and giving our youth opportunities to shine and live their dreams.
Too often, the instinct is to look to government to build new stadiums, swimming pools or gyms.
In our case, yes, the Government built the 60 000-seater National Sports Stadium in 1987 and which is currently undergoing a major facelift in line with some recommendations from the Confederation of African Football (CAF), who have tabled a list of requirements including those for safety and security, that must be met for the facility to be certified fit again to host international matches.
But globally, that is not best practice.
Governments cannot and should not be expected to shoulder the financial burden of sports infrastructure.
Their role is to provide an enabling environment. The real heavy lifting is done through partnerships with the private sector and local authorities.
A closer look at Zimbabwe’s neighbours South Africa puts matters into perspective.
The South African Football Association (SAFA) do not own any of the grounds that Bafana Bafana use, whether it is Peter Mokaba in Polokwane, Toyota in Bloemfontein, Moses Mabhida or the site of the 2010 FIFA World Cup final, FNB, in Johannesburg.
Those facilities are developed through private sector investment and local authorities, and then managed in ways that create social value and business returns.
The same is true across the world. In the United States, sports franchises build and operate facilities as part of profitable business models, with governments providing tax incentives.
In the United Kingdom, iconic venues such as Wembley Stadium are run through hybrid models of association leadership and private capital.
We would like to believe that Zimbabwe has an opportunity to follow this path.
The arrival of VAR, being led by our very own Felix Tangawarima, is more than just a technological upgrade; it is a wake-up call.
If we are serious about positioning ourselves as a modern sporting nation, we must match ambition with infrastructure.
And this cannot stop at football. Our athletes need world-class tracks to run on, pools to swim in and courts to play on.
Our communities need recreational facilities that allow talent to be discovered early and nurtured systematically.
The key is to reframe infrastructure development as an investment, not a cost.
We believe that the call for infrastructure development is for one and all and must not be looked at as a baby of the Government, ZIFA’s, National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe or Basketball Union of Zimbabwe.
For private players, sporting facilities open doors to revenue through events, tourism, hospitality and branding.
And for Government, offering tax breaks, land, or public-private partnership frameworks, creates the environment where such investments thrive.
Crucially for local authorities, unlocking community spaces builds social cohesion while stimulating local economies.
We must as a nation resist the futile expectation that Government alone will build grounds.
What Government can do and must do, is set up the policy scaffolding: attractive incentives for investors, protection for long-term capital and regulations that make partnerships easier.
The private sector, from construction companies, financial institutions, mining and the commercial sector, must see sport not as charity but an industry with strong economic multipliers.
If Zimbabwe treats the COSAFA Under-17 tournament not just as an event, but as a catalyst to rethink how we finance and manage sporting infrastructure, the legacy will be profound.
The goals scored by the teenagers featuring in the tourney this month will fade into memory, but the facilities we build — and the business models that sustain them — will carry our sport into the future.
Therefore, it is time for Government, private sector, federations and local authorities to sit at the same table and this country is endowed with men and women who are capable of coming out with lasting solutions and with the pedigree to build legacy projects.
The VAR cameras will soon be switched off, but the bigger game — the development of sustainable sporting infrastructure — must go on.
dyton mupawaenda