Let the best candidate win

SO, finally, we know the names of the people who will be battling for the ZIFA presidency and those who want to be the board members.

Of course, the list will be whittled down because some of those who filed their papers might not pass the integrity tests.

This means that we have to wait a little longer, after December 22, for us to know who would have passed the test and who would have fallen by the wayside.

So, this drama has just begun and we are going to see a lot of twists and turns before the elections are finally held.

These are important elections because we need a competent team at ZIFA House which can clean the mess which was created by Felton Kamambo and his team at the association.

Under their watch, junior football was not given any attention despite it being such a very important part of our national game because we can only secure our game’s future by taking care of the youth structures.

Women football, an area where we used to be very strong we even played at the 2016 Olympics as one of the two African representatives, was neglected and money meant for women, which comes directly from FIFA, was diverted to other projects.

Kamambo and his team fought many battles with the Warriors who boycotted training on a regular basis over unpaid dues.

It was this stand-off, shortly after Kamambo had come in as the ZIFA boss, which destroyed our 2019 AFCON finals campaign.

We are glad that such nonsense is no longer part of our football and we thank Lincoln Mutasa, the caretaker ZIFA boss, for finding a way to ensure that our players are paid what is due to them.

The reward has been our qualification for the 2025 AFCON finals in impressive fashion, despite playing all our qualifying matches away from home.

So, who do we believe is the best candidate to take charge of ZIFA?

We are not going to declare the man we believe has the best credentials for that job the way we did on the day the Soccer Stars of the Year were chosen.

We believe that all the men who are in the running for the big post have the credentials to take charge of ZIFA and do a good job.

The reality is that everyone can do a better job than Kamambo.

Our concern are the ZIFA Councillors.

Among these councillors we have men and women who have for years traded their votes for cash and they don’t even care about the credentials of the candidate but about their pockets and bank accounts.

It’s sad that those men and women are still part of the group that will vote for the next ZIFA president.

We don’t trust them and we have no reason to believe that they will be guided by national interests, instead of personal interests.