Govt, Zifa should start Afcon 2013 preps

those in charge of football administration.
When the qualification campaign started, Zifa spent time squabbling over who should be the national coach, experimenting with an unknown and untested foreign coach and then appointing yet another coach who has reputation of underachieving.
By the time they settled on the current coach, Norman Mapeza, enough damage had been done to the campaign. So we now have to cheer our neighbours, Zambia and Botswana, and hope that they go all the way and make it to the final. Zambia got off to a good start defeating Senegal 2-1, and their prospects of success are looking really good.
We wait to see how Botswana will fare. If Botswana could make it to the Afcon finals, we surely should also have been there. Botswana got there because of their better organisational skills and stability in administration, which complemented their improving football skills.
It is the teams that prepare well that tend to make it to tournaments such as Afcon and do well. It is no longer a question of who has the better skills in the field of play. This is why perennial giants such as Cameroon, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria have joined Zimbabwe on the sidelines. They have the skills but did not prepare their teams well.
Egypt, another giant, has a perfect excuse given the political disturbances in that country. They will certainly bounce back. Libya defied the mayhem in their country and still qualified.
As Zimbabwean soccer fans follow the proceedings on television they are perhaps comforted by the fact that there are stronger teams that also did not make it.
And as we reflect on the missed opportunity to parade our skills, we need to honestly deal with our weaknesses because the qualification matches for the 2013 finals will soon be upon us.
We need to settle the issue of funding of the national team quickly. The Government needs to take responsibility and set aside money for the campaign if Zimbabwe is to stand any chance of qualifying. Recently we had the embarrassing situation where the Warriors had to travel by bus to Gaborone for an international friendly match.
In this day and age, we cannot expect our national team to travel such a long distance by road and play well. It is just as well the foreign based players had all excused themselves. They would not have accepted such a shoddy arrangement.
To make matters worse, Zifa still did not have the money for the road trip to Botswana and had to be bailed out by a local mining company. So if it is not the Zifa president Cuthbert Dube funding the team from his personal businesses, the football association is busy begging.
Yet we expect the same team to represent us at tournaments such as Afcon, which bring honour and glory to every participating country. Just being there is a great achievement worth celebrating and is good for the development of our players.
Given the impact the tournament has on the profile of participating countries, we believe it is worth spending money to get our team to participate in the tournament.
We have been there twice before. The nation was held spellbound for the duration of our team’s participation, uniting Zimbabwe across the political and tribal divides that threaten the unity of our country.
It is not disputed that we have enough depth among our local and foreign based players to make our presence felt at Afcon. We may not be ready to win it yet but we certainly can make it beyond the group stages should we prepare well.
The onus is now on the Zifa president to offer the necessary leadership and ensure that Zimbabwe qualifies for the next tournament. With the right leadership it can be done.
We have seen how Mavis Gumbo has almost single-handedly galvanised women’s football.
Now the Mighty Warriors are a force to reckon with on the African continent, largely because of the organisational skills of those leading the team.
The men have a lot to learn from how women’s football is being run. Perhaps it is time those leading women’s football aspired to take charge of the men’s game as well.