FROM CAPS UTD TO ZIFA?

Eddie Chikamhi Sports Reporter
AFTER playing a big part in the transformation of Premiership giants CAPS United, Harare lawyer Lewis Uriri wants to take the same approach to the ZIFA board and help turn the football association into a sustainable professional entity.

Uriri, who is the CAPS United board of directors chairman, is gunning for a post on the ZIFA board ahead of the association’s elections on December 5 and firmly believes that football is a big industry which should create gainful employment for thousands.

The lawyer yesterday told The Herald that football should run as a business enterprise that attracts massive corporate investments.

This, however, has not happened in Zimbabwe because of the mismanagement that has taken place at ZIFA over the years.

Uriri’s vision for ZIFA is one of a professional association that will resonate with all the stakeholders and the business world.

He believes his experience with ZIFA where he worked in various sub-committees as well as in the one that probed the Asiagate match-fixing scam had opened his eyes to the organisation’s management flaws.

“From my limited involvement with ZIFA, I have observed that ZIFA’s biggest letdown has been a failure to adhere to the basic tenets of corporate governance, administrative practice and business enterprise.

“ZIFA has never been run as a business and my primary objective is to have the association run as a business, premised on proper corporate governance principles and I believe that I have what it takes to assist in that regard,” said Uriri.

“Gone should be the days when funds to travel for national teams are begged for on the day of the trip.

“The new era should be one in which we have a critical path list, a list that shows the path to follow in whatever qualifiers we are taking part, where the funds will come from and the whole campaign budgeted for in advance.

“The critical issues of development should also be well planned from the grassroots.”

Uriri pointed out that Zimbabwe’s football is in a serious predicament and the only way up will be to turn ZIFA into a professional entity.

Apart from the governance issues, the new board would need to deal with the debt overhang estimated to be US$6 million.

Uriri has been in football for over 14 years having been a board member at CAPS United from 2001 to 2006 and returned again in 2013. Recently he was appointed to lead the Green Machine’s board of directors and is credited with spearheading the positive changes currently taking place at the club.

With his experience in football administration, he is convinced a clean-up of the ZIFA secretariat will be necessary to set up structures that will be more efficient.

“We need the restoration of confidence in football administration.

“The priorities of the new board will be to immediately send into 53 Livingstone Avenue a firm of reputable chartered accountants to look into the systems that are in place and to recommend new financial systems.

“Second in the line should be to get professionals to draw up the critical path list that ZIFA ought to follow.

“In other words, the secretarial functions must be clearly defined, key result areas for each of the people in the secretariat established, unnecessary staff dealt with in accordance with the law with the object of having a lean and efficient team that knows why they are at 53 Livingstone Avenue.

“It is only when this has been done, and hopefully within the first 30 days or so, that we can move to serious business which is how to service the ZIFA debt.

“But much will also depend on whether we share a common vision in the board.

“And I make one major policy, if at the end of the 27 months, there is nothing to show that there has in fact been a departure from the gloomy past from which we have come, I promise to step down, not to run for another term and not to be involved in the game at the national level ever again.

“That goes to show that in the two years that this board will be in office we can change the corporate status of ZIFA from the nonsense that no one wants to be associated with to a brand that the corporate world would wish to be associated with.

“This half term should lay visible, concrete foundation for the future of our game.”

Apart from being a practising lawyer, Uriri also sits on the boards of 14 companies and he hopes that his strong academic background and the experience he has gained on the business side of things will come in handy.

He will compete for the board member positions with former referee Wilfred Mukuna, Joseph Musariri, Beadle Gwasira, Jackson Munyaka, Philemon Machana, Piraishe Mabhena, Mussa Mandaza, Felton Kamambo and ex-Warriors midfielder Edzai Kasinauyo.

Uriri believes the onus rests on the councillors on December 5 “to set up a team that has vision, integrity, professional status to protect and a proven record in the management of the sport and in the management of their personal affairs”.

The new board, according to him, should be committed to serve football. The board should work hard to eliminate ZIFA’s status as a rogue entity that it was made to be in the last decade.

He said he has deliberately avoided making noise about his candidature because he believes the councillors have done enough homework on the calibre of leaders needed at ZIFA.

“It’s not about who is able to say more, it’s not about who has got the eloquence to convince the voting councillors.

“It’s about the record that one has in sports administration.

“I’m sure the councillors have had access to my nomination papers and they are privy to these things.

“But at the end of the day they choose who they want to run the game and ultimately history will be the judge.

“History will show whether they have done the right thing or not. Time will either vindicate or condemn them.

“The councillors that are going to vote owe it not to themselves, but to Zimbabwe as a whole to elect into office the best possible candidates. History will either make them the heroes of our day or judge them harshly, the choice is theirs,” said Uriri.