adminZvamaida Murwira and Masline Mavudzi
FORMER fitness trainer and now politician Temba Mliswa says the Government should appoint an interim committee to run ZIFA for two years while cleaning up the mess at 53 Livingstone Avenue before holding elections to choose a board for the country’s football administration.
Addressing journalists in Harare yesterday, Mliswa said a lot needed to be done in sports, including coming up with a policy guiding how people should be elected and who qualified to occupy office in any sporting discipline.
He said the Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhosini Hlongwane should ensure that there is a sports policy to measure performance of national teams.
Mliswa said one of the mandate of his proposed ZIFA interim committee is to clear the national association’s debt and to allow an elected executive to start on a clean slate.
“I think the Minister should, in consultation with ZIFA and his ministry, be allowed to set up an interim committee that can foresee the running of sport and that interim committee can be mandated to ensure that the debt that is owed is cleared. If you are serious with football, there is no way you cannot come with a programme to take football somewhere by dealing on ways to clear that debt,” said Mliswa.
“Clearly when the national team fails, the national policy should be the measure which then tells you how you failed. Up to now we do not have a national policy in sport so if we do not have that, anybody who is qualified to run sport will never be part of this circus that is happening,” said Mliswa.
He urged the Government to take a leading role in funding sport.
“As long as the Government does not become the major shareholder in the administration of football, I do not think football will go anywhere,” he said.
Commenting on the pending ZIFA elections, Mliswa said some of the candidates were a replication of the Cuthbert Dube-era that thrived on using money to buy votes.
“They are replacing a Cuthbert Dube with another Cuthbert Dube,” he said without mentioning any particular name among the aspiring candidates for the ZIFA presidency.
Mliswa said he had no ambitions to lead ZIFA.
“A lot had been said about me wanting to be the president of ZIFA but one has to be a professional to run sport.
He added: “We are just a social sport no wonder why Philip Chiyangwa will certainly win the ZIFA elections because it is from a social point of view and we cannot be taken serious as a country. We must be able to differentiate social and professional sport.”
Four men are vying for the race to become zifa president and they are Harare businessman Chiyangwa, Trevor Carelse-Juul, a former leader of domestic football, ex-Premier Soccer League secretary-general Leslie Gwindi and former footballer James Takavada.
Online Reporter