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Kudakwashe Mugari – Deputy News Editor
ZIMBABWEANS, like many other Africans, are very passionate about football.
It is the sport closest to our hearts but, sadly, for a long time, we have been forced to put up with blundering football administrators.
Men and women who have mastered the art of making disastrous decisions.
We have become perennial failures.
Facts do not lie, and one does not need to be a “rocket scientist,” to see that our football is not being run properly right now.
In fact, it hasn’t been run, properly, for some time now.
A glimpse at the world rankings, today, will make everyone who cares for this game, and our Warriors, cringe in shame.
We all end up asking ourselves – what this nation has done to deserve perennial disappointments?
What we have done is simple, we have folded our arms, while letting successive ZIFA administrators get away with incompetence.
In 1993, the Warriors were ranked 46th in the world but, today, we are at number 108.
We have not made it into the top 100 since for God-knows-how-many-years.
What has been the real problem since the Dream Team?
Well, we have simply suffered from lack of serious leadership.
Right now, we have embraced our failure in the CHAN tournament, as if there is no need for serious introspection.
The leadership have simply found an excuse, accusing Covid-19, for the reason for our failure.
The truth is Covid-19 is a global pandemic and every nation has been badly affected, including eventual CHAN winners, Morocco.
We were aware, from the day we qualified for the tournament, that we needed serious planning but we had to make do with 11th hour shambolic preparations.
Then, after the inevitable disaster happened, we chose to conveniently blame Covid-19, for our humiliation in Cameroon.
Coach Zdravko Logarusic, and the rest of the ZIFA technical leadership led by Wilson Mutekede, have not been made to account for our failure in Cameroon.
Why?
It is because the ZIFA leadership know they are equally culpable.
And, why hire foreign and expensive-for-nothing expatriate coaches anyway?
Zimbabwe has over 70 qualified local coaches and, as long as we can remember, no foreign coach guided us to any major international tournament.
Why can’t we groom our own and support their development?
The coach who won the CHAN finals was local and the coach who lost in the final was also local.
Somehow, when things go wrong, we never here from the so-called ZIFA councillors, a group of mercenaries, who every four years, go with the money and not what is good for the game.
We have been threatened, now and again, with a FIFA ban, should we take drastic action, against these useless football leaders.
But, in every country’s history, there comes a time when punishment, in this case a ban from FIFA, is worth the effort of addressing our challenges.
If we have been banned from playing in the World Cup qualifiers, why should we be worried about being stopped from playing in the AFCON finals?
After all, we have been to the AFCON finals, four times.
That is why I believe that our current challenges demand drastic measures, we might need to feel the pain, of being banned, so that we realise our potential.
We can’t be held hostage, forever, by people who pretend they love our game and our country.
We can’t just watch while the Sports Commission is reduced into a powerless body by threats?
ZIFA have been crying out for leadership for a long time.
Just look at our national teams, and the chaos that exists there, and you can see the scale of our challenges.
FIve years ago, our Mighty Warriors were good enough to play at the Olympics.
Now, they are not even good enough to come out of their camp to host Zambia in an international match.
Why?
Because they are owed thousands of dollars from previous assignments.
We can’t even send the proper Under-17 players to the COSAFA tournament, where we end up suffering the embarrassment of being expelled for cheating.
A few months later, after all the promises that the matter would be dealt with urgently, nothing has come out of what really happened. The chaos is unbelievable.
So, we end up getting such questionable characters, like Loga, to come and coach our Warriors.
Why? Because noone cares. Is there any country, where the vice-president of the Football Association, would be suspended, for more than two years, and people just pretend as if everything is normal?
That’s why I feel it’s better that we bring the house down and, if that comes with the price of a ban from FIFA, so be it.
We won’t be the first country to be banned and neither will we be the last.
Sometimes, it’s better to take the bull by its horns, and sort out the mess once and for, regardless of temporary sanctions we might face from FIFA.
We have suffered for a long time and that’s a huge price, which we have paid, compared to being banned for a year, or even two.
We are seeing life in cricket, they are doing something right, and one gets tempted to think that they also needed the pain, of being banned, for everyone to see the light.
For everyone to be reminded that they should work for the game, and not for themselves.
Wht should we fear a ban when we haven’t had local football for more than a year?
The time has probably come, for us to take the big plunge, and deal with the pain later.
Maybe, after a year, or even two, we can come back in better shape to ensure that the potential that we have, as a nation, can be converted into success.
Online Reporter