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WE tip our hats off to the Zimbabwe national senior football team for qualifying for next year’s Africa Nations Championship finals to be held in Rwanda from January 16 to February 7. The team held Lesotho to a 1-1 draw in Maseru on Sunday to advance on a 4-2 aggregate scoreline following their 3-1 win at Barbourfields Stadium last weekend.
This will be Zimbabwe’s fourth successive appearance at the Chan tournament which is reserved for players plying their trade in the continent’s domestic leagues. The Warriors’ qualification caps a momentous week for Zimbabwean football as the Mighty Warriors also made history by booking a ticket to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, next year after they beat Cameroon 1-0 at Rufaro Stadium last weekend.
The Warriors’ feat is even sweeter considering the challenges they endured in the run up to the second leg. Coach Kalisto Pasuwa and his technical team literally moved mountains to keep morale in camp high as Zifa’s perennial bungling threatened to derail the team’s progress. The return leg in Maseru hung by a thread until the last minute intervention of Prophetic Healing Deliverance Ministries’ leader Walter Magaya who once again came to the team’s rescue by funding their trip.
Earlier during the week, the players had boycotted training only to resume after their coach pleaded with them. This is not how football should be run. While we salute the players for their dedication to duty and patriotism in the face of adversity, we feel the administrators of the game are letting the nation down. Zifa’s problems are well documented and an opportunity has been presented to the nation to install sound administrators during elections slated for December 5.
The new Zifa board to be ushered in at the polls should clean the game and ensure that good corporate governance structures are adhered to religiously. Zimbabwean football needs to be cleansed of the cancer of corruption and greed and the country does not need people with hidden agendas running the game.
The era of people running for office in order to line their pockets at the expense of the game is over. We therefore appeal to the electorate to make wise choices and elect people who will take Zimbabwean football to the next level. Corporate support for Zifa can only come when sponsors are convinced that their resources will be put to good use. Right now Zifa as a brand is not attractive due to the negative vibes around it.
A culture of impunity and thievery pervades the football motherbody and until the corporate world comes on board, our football will continue to lag behind other nations. Football is Zimbabwe’s number one sport and the mood of the nation is affected if its national teams, particularly the Warriors, are not performing well. The Asiagate scandal blighted the country’s image badly but we are hopeful Zimbabwean football will reclaim its rightful place on the continent and world stage.
The new Minister of Sport Makhosini Hlongwane has hit the ground running and his energy and enthusiasm is already being felt. Minister Hlongwane was in Lesotho to support the Warriors and this is the kind of hands-on approach that is needed to lift the spirits of the players. We sincerely pray that he continues to work with the various national teams and ensure that they get all the support they need to succeed.
Preparations for Rio and Rwanda should begin now with the necessary logistics being put in place to ensure that the teams are not caught flat-footed next year. The Warriors also have an Africa Nations Cup qualification campaign to contend with and the new Zifa board, working with other stakeholders, should be seized with ensuring a smooth campaign. What the Warriors and Mighty Warriors have achieved against all odds shows the depths of talent abundant in the country and the need to nurture it.
With more resources, Zimbabwe’s football teams can achieve better results and we appeal to the corporate world to support them. The country’s profile on the international stage has already been raised by the Mighty Warriors’ qualification for the Olympic Games and most of the players who will do duty in Rio will clinch lucrative contracts outside the country.
The same goes for the Chan tournament in Rwanda where most of the top clubs in Europe will send their scouts. So there are positive spin offs for the country’s qualification for the two tournaments.
Bongani Ndlovu