Falkenburg expected to take over at ZRU

Having been in the office for three terms with mixed fortunes, the former Harare Sports Club chairman will hand over office most likely to Harare’s Falkenburg who is largely tipped to take over on a four-year term.
The Northern Region has selected the former vice president as their candidate for presidency while Zimbabwe Under-20 chairman and former vice president Aaron Jani is expected to stand for the vice-presidency.
The Southern Region were by yesterday yet to make their nominations public.

In the previous term, Falkenburg served as the vice president representing the Northern Region but this time he has expressed interest in taking over as the chief in the Union while Jani – who once served as a vice president as well, hopes to bounce back.
But for Sibanda, the three terms he served as the head of the sport in Zimbabwe were somehow a mixture of challenges and successes after he managed to bring back the Sables on the international scene.

When he got into office in 2009 (after the Sevens World Cup) having taken over the bankrupt union from sevens manager Brice Hobson, Sibanda’s main challenge was getting funding for the whole Union and game time especially for the starved Sables.
However, Sibanda did not manage to bring in as much money as the Union might have expected and as he leaves office the Union’s books are in the negative – the same case as when Hobson left.

This means that the incoming executive committee will also have a huge task of trying to get funding for the sport and making sure that the Union does not rely on donations but becomes self sufficient.
Credit should be given where it is due and it would be unfair to dwell on what Sibanda failed to do as he achieved a number of other goals that were meant to make sure the game moved forward especially having taken a slump over the years.

When he came into office, Sibanda said another of his top priorities was to ensure the Sables got “more game time” and he managed to do that despite the difficult financial environment that sport is operating in this country.