Mliswa and his gospel

Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
TEMBA MLISWA says he has gone through the mill-starting as a raw schoolboy rugby coach and rising to become the Warriors’ fitness coach in a colourful football adventure that saw him briefly take over as Dynamos chairman. Now, having won what he terms is his biggest battle to become a member of the House of Assembly, Mliswa believes he now has the big voice, and authority, which he has been looking for, to make a difference in the country’s sport.

The 41-year-old Mliswa won the ticket to represent Hurungwe West in Parliament and he says he has been given an avenue to make a huge impact, in helping shape the direction that Zimbabwe sport should take.

Mliswa has always been a controversial sporting figure, even though he claims that he is misunderstood by those who don’t understand his vision.
His tenure as DeMbare chairman in September 2002 barely lasted three weeks before he left the club but not before he had become one of the few privileged club administrators to get a personal congratulatory message, after his appointment, from Fifa president Sepp Blatter.

Eleven years later he finds himself as a lawmaker in this country and he told The Herald this week that he was thrilled that he now had the authority to make a big influence in the direction sport in this country should take.

Mliswa believes that the starting point for him will be to lobby for the country to withdraw all its senior national teams, especially the mainstream ones like the football, rugby, cricket, athletics and swimming teams, from taking part in all international competitions for five years.

“What is very clear is that we are not giving back to this great nation what it deserves, in terms of the mileage that it can derive from successful sportspersons or successful national sporting teams, and I believe that we need to take a different approach from what has been business as usual,” said Mliswa.

“Our Warriors, which are our flagship national team, have failed to qualify for the African Cup of Nations for the last seven years and there is very little hope, when you look at what is happening right now, that they will qualify for the next one in 2015.

“We have already failed to make the World Cup in Brazil, it’s like we didn’t compete at all because we just have one point and we are bottom of our group while the leading team has a full set of 18 points and we are already looking at the 2018 World Cup.

“It’s not football alone but even in cricket, we are not competing as well as we should be doing and we should not only be good enough to play Bangladesh but we should be competitive enough to do well against the likes of New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

“We sent a small team to the World Athletics championships but if you go through the newspapers, there is no mention of what we did there, which tells you that we did nothing at all and we were just there to make up the numbers.

“My lobby would be for us to take a break , let’s say for five years, and put our house in order and it’s an issue that I will campaign vigorously for when I’m in parliament and I hope that I will get a lot of support from many Zimbabweans who really care about the pride of our flag.

“In those five years, we can continue sending our junior national teams to international competitions but nothing for the senior teams and I will tell you that we can do a lot, in terms of directing our resources to putting our house in order, and by the time we come back we will be ready to compete in football, in cricket, in rugby and athletics.

“When I look at apartheid South Africa, they were isolated from international competition for so long, but they found a way of making themselves very strong in terms of their rugby, their cricket and their football and in their first Rugby World Cup after the fall of apartheid, they won the tournament and they also won the African title in football.

“I think the South African national teams, in my analysis, were stronger when they were isolated from the world than what they are right now and how did they do it is the big question and if they were able to keep themselves so strong.

“The mission is to try and make sure that when we compete, as Zimbabwe, we should be able to do ourselves proud and it’s just not about making up the numbers and I can assure you that the days of business as usual are gone.”

Mliswa said national team coaches and administrators should brace themselves to more appearances in parliament to answer tough questions about what they were doing, where they were going and what they intended to do to improve sport.

“Things have changed in sport, changed for good, and people are now going to be held accountable for their actions and their positions in public office and I don’t think we owe anybody any apology for the radical way we intend to go about it,” said Mliswa.

“The other day I was speaking with Peter Chingoka (ZC cricket chairman) and my question was why do they believe Steve Mangongo, for everything that he has done for the game, the players he has developed, is only good enough to be the assistant coach of the national team and not the head coach?

“You can’t say that he is not tested because he was in charge when Bangladesh came here and he did very well and has been in this game for a very, very long time he understands it like nobody else and if you can develop the best players we have seen represent us then you can also be good enough to coach them in the national team.

“I’m glad they hired Ian Gorowa at Zifa to be our national coach but I feel there is no way you can continue to freeze Norman Mapeza out of the picture because he has a lot to offer to our football, on a national scale, and to me he is the right man for the director of football post, the one who takes care of the development structures and helps here and there with the national team.

“He has been to Europe and knows exactly what is needed to run football in a professional way.
“I look at rugby and I laugh that we try to make Sevens our flagship sport and we leave the XVs to rot when the XVs are supposed to be the main team and, even then, why is it that the same people who have been coaching or managing the teams are the ones who are still there and there is very little, in terms of success, to back their time there.

“Can you tell me why a guy like Victor Olonga, with all that he did for our rugby, not even in the structures of the game, why are we ignoring him, is it because he fought against the system when people of his colour were being discriminated against and we are not comfortable with him?

“There is a coach at Churchill High, he has done wonders for sport there with no resources at all.
“But to think that he can one day get a chance to work in the national structures has been a wild dream but we have to make it possible for such people.”

Mliswa said his mission was simply to ensure that sport turns a new leaf in this country.
He claims, there was no doubting the talent that exists in this country.

“We have abundant talent and I should say that because I have spent a lot of time, in the last years, in the remote parts of this country and I was bowled out by the raw sporting talent that I saw in those areas,” said Mliswa.

“What is needed is for us to be united.
“I’m glad that the people of Hurungwe West have given me a powerful voice for me to help my country and sport, as you know, is something that is very close to my heart.

“That’s what I did as a young man, what I studied at university and it has always been my passion.”