Finally, ZIFA plays ball

Moffat Mungazi
WHILE the Zimbabwe Football Association has had a well-chronicled and hugely troubled past, the local game’s governing body appears to have found a match-winning form that if maintained may see it steer on course for a successful streak.

From the Warriors’ expulsion from participation in the 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifiers and the senior men team’s chaotic preparations and subsequent shambolic travelling to Malawi for a 2017 CAF Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against the Flames to the Mighty Warriors’ failure to fulfil a 2016 Olympics qualifier against Cote d’Ivoire in Abidjan, the crippling circus at ZIFA pointed to a tragic trajectory that our national game was trudging on.

Enter the game-changing president Philip Chiyangwa and his new board to pacify that storm and blow a serene sail into the turbulent waters that had hitherto threatened eventual wreckage of the ZIFA ship.

A much-maligned and unpopular figure during the presidency campaign trail, Chiyangwa has since assuming office wasted no time in putting his shoulder to the wheel in a pragmatic approach to restore integrity to the association’s severely bruised reputation and exorcise the ghost of maladministration at Number 53, Livingstone Avenue, the national football governing body’s headquarters.

The gospel according to the flamboyant businessman is to have ZIFA morph into a self-sustaining successful entity.

“The question of financing our football is critical and that is my main thrust . . . We have to rebuild our football and to get there we need international links just as much as we want more funding,” Chiyangwa has been quoted as saying.

Although still in the infancy of their office occupancy, Chiyangwa, as the team captain, presently appears to be commanding his team very well and are onside for a victorious tenure.

Already, the outstanding dues owed to former Warriors coach Tom Saintfiet, which cost the nation participation in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers is being taken care of, with the last instalment of the two-part staggered payment set to be cleared this month following a $1 million sponsorship package Chiyangwa secured for the association from Harare businessman, Wicknell Chivayo.

Kallisto Pasuwa — the national team mentor whose coaching credentials continue to gather credence — has been offered a contract, after nearly a year of working without any; a deserved and earned recognition for his stellar show with the Warriors and the Under-23s, under whose tutelage he both guided to a record fourth successive appearance at the African Nations Championships and clinching a berth at the Africa Games set for Senegal in September, respectively.

With the senior men’s winning bonuses at Chan catered for, with Chivayo undertaking to pay them, the Warriors go on the hunt for gold extra motivated after Zifa, through Chiyangwa, last week revealed that the team will share all the proceeds from the tournament and may also pocket other incentives.

The raising of the Warriors’ welfare to a lofty pedestal, with the desire “to get our players to play in competitive European leagues” should also come as sweet music to the players’ ears, with Chiyangwa acknowledging that: “It is the players who sweat on the field, they attract thousands of fans to the stadia and as such, they deserve more.”

Subsequently, the commendable work that the ZIFA board has put in thus far has earned the plaudits of Sports Minister, Makhosini Hlongwane, who at one time voiced concern over the maladministration that was blighting the national game, but recently expressed satisfaction with how the association was now going about its business.

Going by the positive vibe accentuated by the harmonious tone at Number 53, Livingstone Avenue and the Warriors camp, ZIFA are finally playing the ball and the administration game can now be won, with winning the Chan tournament a realistic target and tonic for future success.

The Warriors get their Chan campaign underway when they take on northern neighbours Zambia next Tuesday, before engaging Uganda the following Saturday and meet Mali on January 27 in the last of their Group D matches’

The tournament will be hosted by Rwanda from January 16 to February 7.