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LOCAL football authorities this week had busy schedules as they welcomed representatives from FIFA, CAF and COSAFA on a fact-finding mission.
A series of meetings took place with the aim of trying to establish what exactly is the problem with Zimbabwean football and a possible way out from this conundrum.
ZIFA, the country’s biggest national sports association, is in a crisis and because of that Zimbabwe has been suspended from international football for over a year now.
It has been a difficult period in the history of the domestic game, which was thrown into the wilderness after FIFA invoked Article 13 of the world football Statutes against ZIFA.
The radical move by the world football governing body stripped the local football association of all its membership rights and accompanying privileges at FIFA, as of February 24, 2022.
With this suspension, Zimbabwean representative national and club teams were no longer entitled to take part in regional and international competitions until the suspension was lifted.
Both the men’s and women’s national teams have missed out on competitions such at the Africa Cup of Nations, CHAN and the COSAFA Championships in the past year.
The clubs such as FC Platinum and Bulawayo Chiefs were also unable to play in the CAF inter-club competitions while Dynamos also felt the pinch when they were kicked out of the pre-season tournament organised by Big Bullets of Malawi earlier this year.
ZIFA and its members or officials have also been suffering as they were struck off the roll of beneficiaries of football development programmes, grants, courses and training organised by FIFA and CAF.
These are some of the costs that have come with the FIFA suspension. This cannot continue to happen for another month or another year.
Solutions are needed to the crisis. First, it’s ZIFA itself that needs to be reformed, and the cleansing has to be thorough.
There was so much corruption at ZIFA and it’s a cancer that has been allowed to propagate over a number of years to the extent that it had become endemic at all levels of the football pyramid.
The corruption led to another big problem, which is the election of people of questionable credentials and devoid of the requisite experience to lead football.
Currently, some members of the board that was elected in 2018 have pending court cases, where they are facing charges of bribing their way into the office.
This calibre of leaders also does not have respect for authority and have been breaking the law under the shield of FIFA statutes that discourage “third party interference”. Yet government is an important stakeholder.
The domestic football leadership have made the football environment toxic. The level of politicking had relegated the core business of football administration to the back burner. Successive ZIFA executive committees of late had been punctuated by divisions, scheming and the endless suspension of members that dared to differ.
A forensic audit conducted by an independent firm recently unearthed massive financial irregularities, with the association likely to be prejudiced over US$600 000 in under three years.
Of major concern was that football development had stalled at all levels. Women’s football suffered the most as the constituency was denied its share of development grants from FIFA, despite the money coming specifically in the name of women’s football development.
There were also allegations of sexual harassment of female referees by some of the officials and one of them, Obert Zhoya, was convicted by FIFA last year.
Zhoya got a length ban and was also fined heavily for the transgressions, which the ZIFA board paid a blind eye to.
The time has come for Zimbabwean football to move away from such primitive ways of doing business. The suspension by FIFA has given us a perfect opportunity to reboot.
Zimbabwean football has to return from the wilderness on a clean slate. The visit by the delegation from FIFA, CAF and COSAFA should provide the platform for that.
FIFA have to look at the ZIFA situation from a fresh angle. The situation is unique and therefore, their template which they proffered last year as a condition for ZIFA’s reinstatement may not produce the best results for Zimbabwe.
After all, the term of the ZIFA executive committee elected in 2018, ended in December last year, and ZIFA is in a kind of constitutional crisis.
Hopefully, the visiting delegation has gathered enough information on the real issues on the ground during the week of deliberations.
FIFA senior member associations governance manager Sarah Solemale and FIFA head of development programmes in Africa Solomon Mudege have held marathon meetings with football stakeholders since they arrived in the country early this week.
The CAF and COSAFA representatives who included COSAFA president Artur de Almeida de Silva of Angola, Football Association of Malawi president Walter Nyamilandu and Botswana Football Federation president Maclean Letshwiti also got a better appreciation of the ZIFA crisis through the visit.
According to a statement from the Sports Commission, “the stakeholders have been clear about the changes needed in Zimbabwean football and have collectively called for a swift resolution to ZIFA’s challenges.”
“…a common sentiment among these stakeholders was the need for strong, lawful governance structures to support Zimbabwe’s return to international football, as well as a commitment to implementing necessary reforms for the sport’s future development and success in the country.”
This is what all the football-loving Zimbabweans want. The fact that there was an agreement “on the next steps to address ZIFA’s current situation” shows progress.
Hopefully, FIFA will consider all the findings and this visit will not end up an empty talk show.
Online Reporter