Chronicle Editor
Fungai Muderere, Senior Sports Reporter
CASTLE Lager Premier Soccer League chief executive officer Kennedy Ndebele says local football clubs are finding it hard to comply and fully embrace the tenets of the Fifa and Caf club licensing that was introduced locally in the past few years.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Chicken Inn three-day strategic workshop, Ndebele said:
“Club licensing has been a big challenge, I think we are still lagging behind. We cannot really say we are happy about it. Probably as a result of this we have seen some clubs going bankrupt and some are now defunct because of lack of implementation of club licensing regulations.”
He added that there was a need for all the stakeholders to work together and put club licensing benchmarks.
“I think there is a need for everyone to get involved, all stakeholders, Confederation of African Football (Caf), Zifa, Premier Soccer League and clubs to really put benchmarks and stick to them so that we will be able to implement the club licensing system, a standardisation programme meant to develop clubs into business units,” said Ndebele.
“There is need for proper structures where we have to have to clearly set up structures in terms of governance where we can talk about having a board that is responsible for formulation and the secretariat that is responsible for implementation of the club’s objectives. We also need to have the technical aspect where we have properly qualified coaches, coaches who are properly equipped and assisted by clubs to develop our football. With that kind of business, you will need to have offices that are manned by experts, qualified personnel. Our worry is that the PSL is as strong as its clubs. The league is not the secretariat, the league is 18 clubs. So, the clubs must drive football. The reason why Zifa gave PSL clubs a seat each in the Zifa assembly is for them to lead the professionalisation of the game.”
It has always been hoped that clubs meet the minimum standards, at least have a constitution that spells out club ownership and documents to spell out job description, separation of power and division of labour.
According to Fifa, the organisation structure of a club should have a president and a board of directors who appoints and general managers who run the day-to-day activities of the club. Clubs should have a technical structure for the senior team, a medical team and youth developmental structures. The structure should have club structures administration which has administration, marketing, communications, finance, human resources, legal, logistics, facilities management and event management. — @FungaiMuderere
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