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Sikhumbuzo Moyo Senior Sports Reporter
THE Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Andrew Langa, is considering pushing for a law through Parliament that will criminalise age cheating with offenders prosecuted through the courts of law. At the moment, there is no direct law that punishes offenders save for minor punishments like bans. Even still then, it is the athlete that gets banned while administrators or coaches usually go scot free.
The call by Langa comes amid embarrassing revelations that Zimbabwe coach, Tafadzwa Mashiri, fielded about two over aged players during last year’s African Union Sports Council Region 5 Under-20 Youth Games which were held in Bulawayo.
Past representative junior national football teams’ ages have also raised some eyebrows while National Association of Primary and Secondary Heads sporting activities have been caught in age cheating storms with perpetrators going unpunished.
“My own personal perspective is that we need a law that will criminalise age cheating because it kills our sports.
“Those found doing it should face the full wrath of the law which might even include custodial sentences because it’s corruption and fraud as well. I’ll soon engage the relevant arms of government to make sure we’ve deterrent laws,” said Minister Langa.
Most coaches in the lower rung age groups are obsessed with overnight success that sees them doing anything to achieve that success with two schools in Masvingo and Midlands provinces now known citadels of age cheating.
The Zimbabwe players fingered at the Region 5 Games are said to be pupils at one of the schools.
“We were alerted by Agent Sawu who said he once chased away one of the boys for being over age in the Under-17 squad some two years ago but the boy was in the squad. Age cheating is so rampant in these developmental sides that Zifa’s decision to concentrate on the juniors will come to naught because some of these boys will age soon,” said a juniors coach.
Meanwhile, in an unrelated matter, Minister Langa said he will vigorously push for the introduction of tax rebates for companies that are into sports sponsorship.
“I thought my colleague, Patrick Chinamasa, was going to include that in his budget presentation last month but he didn’t, so I’ll engage him again because we need the corporate world to sponsor sports but without incentives, that’ll be difficult to achieve,” he said.
Bongani Ndlovu