Gorowa loses his cool

Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
WARRIORS’ coach Ian Gorowa’s graphic description of Zifa chief executive, Jonathan Mashingaidze, as a “habitual liar” this week represented the tipping point of a poisoned working relationship between the two which has sharply deteriorated in recent weeks.Gorowa finally lost his cool on Wednesday after days of an ugly row between the two, which until now had been restricted to a flurry of e-mails that have flown between Zimbabwe and South Africa, and labelled Mashingaidze a serial liar.

“That man is a habitual liar, tell him I said that and see what he does,” Gorowa told our sister newspaper, The Chronicle.
“I want to give back to my country but you can only do that to people who understand what football administration is all about.
“Right now, even without a contract I have been engaging Zifa to try and take advantage of the March 5 Fifa calendar day to have an international friendly, but to no avail.”

Gorowa was unhappy that Mashingaidze kept giving the country the impression that Zifa had given the coach a contract, effectively securing his future, something that the coach disputes.

“Zifa has offered nothing up to now, they should desist from trying to look good in the eyes of the nation by manipulating my name,” said Gorowa.

This is in stark contrast to what Mashingaidze told the media earlier this month, during a tour of the Zifa Village, that the association had done their part and offered Gorowa a contract.

“The contract is already with him but he said he will come back to us after the finals (Chan) so as an association we are waiting for him. If it takes long we might have to remind him,” said Mashingaidze.

The Herald can, however, reveal that the relationship between Gorowa and Mashingaidze has been stormy in recent weeks and a number of ugly e-mails have been exchanged between the duo with the coach expressing his continued frustrations over the way national team issues were being handled by the Zifa office.

Gorowa feels that his team is in danger of missing a golden opportunity, to play an international friendly on Wednesday, because the Zifa office has either failed to play their administrative duties or have frustrated all efforts to secure a game for the Warriors.

While Gorowa has spent a considerable period of time with the home-based crew of the Warriors, he has spent very little time with the foreign-based players and wanted to use the Wednesday Fifa friendly date to have a closer look at some of the players he has targeted for the future. Gorowa has spent the last six months concentrating on the home-based players and believes that he now has a good idea of the players he needs, from the domestic front, to take into his team ahead of the start of the 2015 Nations Cup qualifiers.

But while his knowledge of the locally-based Warriors is immense, helped to a large extent by his presence in the technical team at the Cosafa Senior Cup tournament in Zambia and then taking charge of their CHAN finals campaign, he still wants to have an up-close-and-personal look at his foreign-based players.

A number of countries, including Gabon, Rwanda and Botswana, are reported to have expressed interest in playing the Warriors, in an international friendly, next Wednesday and, with Gorowa insisting that he needs foreign-based players for that match, a complication has arisen given Zifa’s fragile financial situation.

But Gorowa, who still insists that his CHAN team would have won the tournament if Zifa had allowed him to have a 20-day training camp in South Africa in December, a programme that feel victim to the association’s difficult financial state, feels there is more to the complications, related to the national team playing a friendly international next Wednesday, than the issue of funds.

Zifa spokesman Xolisani Gwesela told New Zimbabwe.com this week that the Warriors friendly international next Wednesday will go ahead as scheduled.

“The match will go ahead as planned. We are just finalising on logistical issues before we let you know who we are playing. As Zifa we take pride in the independence of our technical team so the coaches will give us their squad for this match,” said Gwesela.

But Gorowa, without going into details yesterday, said he feared that his programme was being sabotaged and said he had made that clear in correspondence that he has sent to Mashingaidze in the past two weeks.

“I have written a couple of e-mails to Mashingaidze but I don’t think it is right for me to divulge information that is meant to be confidential, but I can say that I am not happy with a lot of things that have been happening,” Gorowa told The Herald last night.

The national coach appears to have taken an aim at the country’s football leaders and his interview, published on the Fifa website last week, he said the association has failed to honour any agreement they did with him.

“It was a gentleman’s agreement, yes, but they still failed to honour any part of that. Zifa has no money to pay a coach. I have been getting an upkeep token from Dube (Cuthbert, Zifa president) but that stopped in November last year,” said Gorowa.

“The mindset of the people who are running the sport within our country also has to change. They have to think big. It is one thing to say there is no money but then there is no professionalism. We know there is no money, but I think whatever approach you have, it has to be professional. One thing we need to do is to create a professional atmosphere, regardless of the resources that are available.”