Online Reporter
Eddie Chikamhi-Zimpapers Sports Hub
DOMESTIC administrators have lauded FIFA for capacitating them through the Club professionalisation and management workshop, which they believe has laid the platform for accelerated development of football in the country.
Some of the participants told Zimpapers Sports that they feel the onus is now on administrators to return to their respective leagues and clubs and implement some of the strategies that emerged from the highly-interactive indaba.
The workshop which attracted PSL clubs, Division One clubs, and representatives from the Zimbabwe Women’s Football League and lower-tier leagues, challenged the local administrators to shift their mindset and embrace the modern methods of growing the game.
Even the big clubs like Highlanders, CAPS United, Dynamos, FC Platinum, Ngezi Platinum Stars and Chicken Inn were convinced that efficient administration was not achieved only by long experience but also by continuous learning and exposure to modern trends.
“The programme has been educative and quite informative,” said CAPS United Chief Executive Officer Morton Dodzo.
“The club professionalisation and management workshop is primarily motivated by the desire to turn clubs professional and create a deep foundation for sustainable success.
“The major take-aways for me were the critical aspects to resolve the issues often ignored or neglected by football clubs; aspects of governance, commercialisation and marketing, transparent financial management and the topical club licensing regulations.
“A combo of these if religiously implemented, monitored and reviewed will definitely help clubs improve on operational and administrative standards.
“So, it has been a very essential and educative programme that we believe is of great value to the clubs,” Dodzo said.
FIFA head of development programmes in Africa Solomon Mudege and the world football body’s consultant Marcos Pelegrin led the panel of experts who facilitated the discussions. Lead FIFA Regional Office for Africa David Fani was also part of the delegation.
Key topics that were discussed during the two days include Strategic Planning, Governance, Finance, Club Licensing, and Commercial & Marketing.
Dodzo said the knowledge gained from the workshop will strengthen his CAPS United in their efforts to improve efficiency and turn around the fortunes of the club.
“As a club firstly, we need to continue investing in our current youth programmes as well as assemble a women’s team to accommodate the girl child and participate in different women competitions.
“Additionally, we need to keep upgrading our standards professionally and in the way we run our operations, the results of which will see the club being professional, sustainable and competitive.
“Other areas that we learnt and that we aim to improve on are to do with infrastructural investment, the dynamics of technology and the significance of digitalisation, the ambition to win the league and participate in more lucrative competitions just to mention a few,” said Dodzo.
Premier Soccer League acting chief executive officer Rodwell Thabe said such engagements should be held regularly to continuously capacitate administrators.
Thabe said the clubs stand to benefit immensely from the workshop.
“We as the Premier Soccer League are grateful to the Zimbabwe Football Association and FIFA for the two-day engagement that we’ve had, mostly on the professionalisation of our football clubs.
“We have engaged productively, we have had good takeaways from this workshop, which include the FIFA club licensing regulations, the commercialisation of sport, good governance,’’ Thabe said.
“I’m sure as the Premier Soccer League our clubs are going to benefit immensely from these interactions that we’ve had over the past two days.
“The benefits that we are obviously going to see in a couple of weeks, months and years include financial stability for clubs, improved management and governance, infrastructure development, marketability for the clubs, enhanced welfare for the players, technical staff and the club staff, youth development being implemented religiously and the competitive balance across all the clubs in the Premier Soccer League.
“And, as the league we are quite happy that we have had this robust engagement because we believe that these benefits will go a long way in ensuring the sustainability and the success of the league and we hope in future we can be able to engage on more programmes such as these so that sport as a whole may evolve and grow for the better of this country and so that the national team too may benefit from the by-products of these workshops.
“As the PSL players become better, the administrators become better, so does the national product. So, we are quite grateful and we hope we’ll continue such interactions with FIFA and FIFA,” added Thabe.
ZIFA chief executive officer Yvonne Manwa emphasised that strong structures will translate to robust governance and growth of the game.
She lauded the clubs for turning out in numbers for the workshop.
“True football development begins in the boardroom, in the strengthening of systems, in planning, and in professional administration,’’ Manwa said.
“That Zimbabwean administrators are committed to the development of their clubs as shown by their participation in the course.
“This is an ongoing programme that will see the participants take an online version of the course. It’s a first step towards the process of capacitating administrators,” said Manwa.
