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Sports Reporter
SEASONED football administrator Vincent Pamire yesterday took a swipe at Zifa and the Ministry of Sports, Arts and Culture for their bungling, which led to Zimbabwe’s suspension from the 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifiers. Zimbabwe will be spectators when the global draw for the qualifiers takes place on Saturday after the country was ejected due to a $81,000 debt owed to former national team coach José Claudinei Georgini, better known as Valinhos.
The debt owed to the coach initially stood at $67,000, but ballooned to $81,000 due to legal costs.
Pamire accused Zifa and the Ministry of taking the nation for a ride by falsely promising to sort out the mess, while knowing they had no clue on how to address the matter.
The former Zifa acting chairman, under whose watch Zimbabwe qualified for their maiden Afcon finals in Tunisia in 2004, said the national football mother body had shamed the nation while the Ministry watched.
“It’s very painful to be expelled from participating in the ultimate competition. Zifa has shamed the nation together with these people from the Sports and Recreation Commission who did nothing as things got worse over the years. Zifa and SRC have destroyed everything,” Pamire said.
“Actually what Zifa, SRC bosses and the Ministry have done is to work against the government’s economic blueprint Zim-Asset, which spells out the people’s needs, including sport. Zim-Asset seeks to create empowerment and eradicate poverty,” said Pamire.
“Look, most of these boys have chosen soccer as a profession so that they earn a living through it, but where will they showcase their talent if the country is banned from the Fifa World Cup? Where will they earn the much needed national team caps for them to move to better remunerating European leagues?”
Pamire said the current crop of Under-23s would be wasted by missing out on international games.
He said the government should have intervened to save the sinking Zifa ship.
“Now all dreams of watching our national team play against the best have been dashed because of shameless people who did not admit that they have failed or even step down when the going got tough. Instead they kept on lying to the nation and giving everyone false hope, yet Fifa had made it clear that if we don’t pay, we will be suspended.
“If the government had intervened, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Governments, the world over intervene to save sport and I believe they should have done that,” said Pamire.
He asked why Zifa president Cuthbert Dube was still clinging onto power after getting the country banned from the Fifa World Cup and failed to raise $34,000 for the Mighty Warriors’ airfares for an Olympic qualifier against Ivory Coast in Abidjan.
Online Reporter