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THE past month has highlighted the problems that football development faces when authorities do not have shared goals.
Football administrators have attracted negative headlines that could easily have been avoided if they actually sat behind the scenes and planned as a team for the betterment of the game in the country.
However, it looks like administrators prefer to score points on public platforms at the expense of football development.
According to public sentiment, the Zifa Normalisation Committee led by Lincoln Mutasa has turned out to be a huge disappointment and this is mainly because the football community had high hopes that they would transform the game in their one-year interim roles.
And their mandate was also clear and seemingly easy –to bring normalcy to the most popular sport in the country.
The popularity of football in the country means there is an abundance of expertise to be tapped into by the normalisation committee and everyone else in football leadership.
However, it seems like there is no team spirit and the administrators have ended up making blunders that are easily avoidable where there is teamwork.
While the normalisation mandate is broad for the interim Zifa leadership, the national teams top the priority list and Mutasa, together with his committee, will be judged around the Warriors, Mighty Warriors and Young Warriors mainly.
Unfortunately, this has been a disaster so far.
For instance, the search for the substantive Warriors coach started off as a race for well-travelled foreign coaches. Information was even availed that applications came from scores of seasoned coaches, especially from Europe.
However, probably after consultations or engagement with Fifa, Zifa then decided to appoint an interim coach for the duration of the normalisation committee so that the new substantive leadership at the national association would then come in with their own long-term coaches for the various teams.
And suddenly it became a job for locally available coaches. Highlanders’ Brito Baltemar got the job and the old way of doing appointments at Zifa returned as they made sure the technical team also had someone from Dynamos.
Genesis Mangombe, who holds an interim role at Dynamos, was appointed as an assistant.
These appointments have never really worked as the coaches are distracted and overburdened due to club commitments.
The Highlanders and Dynamos jobs are very demanding for any coach and to then be expected to also carry the Warriors’ responsibilities is a burden.
The coaches will not have enough time to monitor potential national team players outside of the Fifa window because they have jobs at their clubs. They are only freed from their club jobs when it is time for national team matches, which means there is no opportunity to actually watch players from other clubs within Zimbabwe and abroad.
It is a full time job.
Unfortunately, the Warriors coaches, under the current set-up, will have to use other people’s sentiments to select their squad while pushing members of their own teams they work with on a daily basis.
After the appointment of coaches, Zifa then failed to utilise two Fifa windows for international matches. They failed to secure friendlies for which all eligible Zimbabwean footballers would have been available. Instead, the Fifa window went to the domestic Castle Lager Premier Soccer League matches.
Zimbabwe are one of a very few countries that have not played an international friendly in the two Fifa windows to date.
The Fifa windows for international matches are known well in advance and a normalised Zifa would have prioritised securing friendly matches by reaching out to potential opponents within the region and beyond, depending on available budget.
This week we had the embarrassment of Zifa advertising a friendly match against Botswana yet the neighbours did not know anything about it.
What has also been disappointing is the clear lack of engagement between Zifa and PSL, which has resulted in league matches being announced, cancelled and then restored. The confusion created by these inconsistencies frustrate all the other stakeholders and might be one of the reasons attendances at matches are low.
The two football bodies should be engaging behind the scenes and coming up with solid fixtures for both the national teams and domestic league without having to chop and change during the course of the week.
Teams would not be writing to the league seeking postponement of matches due to more than three players having been called up for national duty. Behind the scene planning would remove all these public spats and flexing of muscles. As it is, Zifa and PSL should be planning on the 2024 calendar to ensure that they accommodate all possible fixtures, which then determines when the domestic leagues kick off to avoid a backlog of games late in the year like the current scenario.
On Wednesday we witnessed the benefits of engagement by football stakeholders when Zifa announced that CAF B License holders will be allowed to coach in the Castle Lager Premiership again with immediate effect.
A number of coaches were shut out of the system when ZIFA and the Premier Soccer League barred non-CAF A holders from sitting on the bench during topflight football matches, as a way of conforming to the FIFA and CAF Club Licensing regulations.
The change will remain in effect until all CAF coaching courses resume in Zimbabwe. This was a decision in the best interests of football in the country as it opens doors to more coaches to practice at the highest level locally.
Coaches were suffering yet it was not their fault and despite numerous representations, the old Zifa refused to consider their plight yet they were not conducting the CAF A classes.
Wednesday’s development is commendable on the part of the Zifa NC and the other stakeholders who met and reached a solution behind the scenes. When this happens, football is a winner and there are a lot of opportunities for the football authorities, led by the Zifa NC, to successfully normalise local football.
Online Reporter