‘Fifa committed to helping Zim’

Eddie Chikamhi Sports Reporter
VISITING FIFA official Solomon Mudege says the world football controlling body are committed to helping Zimbabwe resuscitate their development programmes.

Mudege, a Zimbabwean administrator based in Zurich and working as Development Programmes Manager for Africa, has been in the country for the past week on a familiarisation tour and had meetings with ZIFA president Philip Chiyangwa and his board on the state of football in Zimbabwe. He urged the association’s new board to put their act together and take advantage of the financial assistance programmes that are availed by FIFA.

In recent years, Zimbabwe have been missing out on development grants after the world football body had cut their aid largely due to ZIFA’s failure to comply with the requirements, chiefly the inability to submit audited yearly financial statements. “We have got an entire portfolio of development programmes available to all our member associations. We have categorised our different member associations according to their needs.

“Yes, when it comes to voting and democratic processes every federation is the same. “So Germany is the same as Zimbabwe but in terms of the actual needs we have categorised our different member associations and there are other programmes which are targeted to those member associations which might not have the same resources as the stronger ones which are more economically advanced countries.

“Some of the programmes that Zimbabwe and all other member associations within their category could apply for is called the Challenger Programme which assists with infrastructure.

“We also have the Win-Win Programme which looks at member associations which have challenges in generating revenue; how they can do that by accessing some start-up funding from FIFA.

“We have had recent approvals for South Africa who had said they wanted to do more Licencing and merchandising programmes.

“We had got member associations from other parts of the world we have assisted like Tajikistan who had an OB Van which they bought in order to broadcast their own live matches.

“We have Burkina Faso who said that they had problems with transportation, they bought buses to transport their teams. So with ZIFA, when we had our discussion, it was more on this Win-Win which you can use to put in place particular activities or operations which allow you to generate income.

“ZIFA is obviously thinking about which type of programme will be best suited for the Zimbabwean conditions and which would allow them to secure more revenue. Once they have made a decision they can make an application to FIFA and we will process it accordingly.”

He called for compliance.

“As long as a member association is compliant with our development regulations — they have audited accounts, they have minutes from their general assembly. Those type of things are required in the development regulations.

“If they have that they are welcome to apply.

“Admittedly for myself, ZIFA and FIFA, I think everyone is trying to make sure that we do things better and that we don’t end up in a situation where we are not able to fully support the developmental activities and football participation within Zimbabwe.”