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Marshal Gore in LONDON, England
THE FIFA ban is tragic and disheartening news to the Zimbabwean football fraternity.
This isolation will hurt many football-loving fans and players in our country.
Given our circumstances, this decision was not a surprise but only a matter of time. It was inevitable and unavoidable.
Zimbabwe football has endured the chaos of maladministration and misgovernance for almost two decades.
This root has continued under the tutelage of different presidents of ZIFA for far too long. It’s like a curse. We now need a major overhaul of the whole engine, a radical transformation of the system and the association from top to bottom.
Here is the opportunity to find a lasting solution that will turn our weaknesses into strengths. This process will be long and painful, like child labour, but we will rise again if we get it right.
Sadly, we will now need to learn to get comfortable by being uncomfortable if we are to get it right. It will be challenging to find solutions under the circumstances and gain FIFA’s confidence when relegated outside in the cold. This is what wounded leadership delivers, painful strange encounters?
The suspended ZIFA leadership lacked vision and wisdom. They focused only on plundering and not developing our football.
Last year, ZIFA’s incompetence became a liability and an embarrassment to the whole nation when FIFA and CAF condemned all our stadiums as unfit to host international matches. Yet, we are not fully utilising and claiming our FIFA development funds for infrastructure development. No wonder the Sports Commission had to move in and act furiously.
I think it’s time to come to terms and accept that our current football leaders have failed us. There has been gross misconduct for far too long. We all have to accept that we are now in a football crisis, a big dilemma and a precarious position.
Our football now needs major surgery to address all the operational challenges, misgovernance, illicit financial flows and under development presented by the Felton Kamambo administration.
Sometimes living with the pain of recovery is better than contemplating pain before the surgery. It’s time to go to the theatre now.
Many lessons should be learnt from this humiliating experience. Now we know important decisions must not be rushed.
Sometimes slowly is the safest way to go where you want to be. With all good intentions, some of the Sports Commission decisions were rushed. They needed to wait patiently for the judiciaries to do their job first and prosecute. I felt they moved in too fast after smelling blood without thorough due diligence.
They underestimated the wounded leadership’s resistance that was very clever in manipulating FIFA laws and statutes to their advantage, knowing that they were at fault.
This won’t last long. The ship is sinking now.
To those who paid bribes to get to the top in football, now we all know today that while corruption can get you to the top fast, only integrity will keep you to the top. This is a big lesson to all who want to be leaders.
We must reform our football now and ensure that we have proper safeguards to prevent wolves masquerading as sheep to become gatekeepers of our beautiful game.
The current selection and election system for board members and for ZIFA president is not working. It has, over the years, been successful in delivering inept and corrupt leaders. It’s flawed and outdated. This system needs to be reviewed and changed to enable meritocracy to thrive.
We need a fit and proper person vetting criteria to be included in the process. Before one can qualify to be a candidate for the ZIFA board, they must meet the requirement of good character and have the qualifications, competence, skills, and experience necessary to perform the work.
Without these safeguards in place, the system will deliver another Kamambo.
We have failed because of wounded leadership. In leadership, you will fail when you allow your ego to sanitise your mistakes.
Although Kamambo and co. never planned to fail, they failed to plan. Now they have failed the nation, all of us, the clubs and the national team’s 2023 AFCON dream.
For now, the only way to go up is to go down first and have a fresh start.
We now need wisdom in the Sports Commission to turn this setback into a major comeback. The whole system in ZIFA needs to repent and allow professionalism to reign. We need the three RRRs to reform, restructure and rebuild. The current constitution needs to be reviewed and amended to enable performance management and monitoring of the association to be conducted by those outside the organisation without vested interest. A robust quality assurance process must be implemented, tailor-made to protect the organisation, not individuals. The fans also need representation on the board. They are the custodians of the game. They should have a say and a vote in all this.
As we advance, we need an urgent stakeholder engagement meeting to discuss the way forward and agree on reforms without prejudice.
Let’s avoid personal emotional scores and put Zimbabwe football first. Now more than ever, we need to be united in finding solutions that work for us and the greater good of Zimbabwean football.
To the Zimbabwean football fans, I say don’t lose hope. The happiest people are not always the most successful people. But they are the ones who serve the best. You’re simply the best. #GoWarriorsGo
l Marshall Gore is a UK-based football administrator
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