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Petros Kausiyo Deputy Sports Editor
IN a rare move, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture have summoned national coaches Ian Gorowa and Rosemary Mugadza to Parliament on Thursday to discuss the Warriors and Mighty Warriors’ failures in continental assignments. Gorowa saw his Warriors slump to one of their worst defeats when they were sent crashing out of the 2015 African Cup of Nations qualifying race at the first round of the preliminary round stage with the senior side falling 3-2 on aggregate to Tanzania.
Barely two weeks later, the Mighty Warriors’ hopes of a return to the African Women’s Championships finals were blown away following back-to-back 1-0 defeats by Zambia in Harare and Lusaka in the final qualifier for a place at the tournament, scheduled for Namibia in October.
Those two failures left the national game without any major tournament to look out for with the Warriors’ plight even made harder by the fact that the Cosafa Senior Challenge Cup for which they were hoping to take part in again, now hangs in the balance after original hosts Botswana withdrew from staging the event in Gaborone next month.
Zimbabweans were this weekend also reminded of how much the Warriors have declined after the team that bundled them out — Tanzania — could not go beyond the second round of the preliminary stage after a 4-2 aggregate defeat by Mozambique.
The Mambas held the Taifa Stars 2-2 in Dar-es-Salaam before sealing qualification to the group stage of the qualifiers with a 2-1 win in Maputo on Sunday.
Mozambique will now join 2012 African champions Zambia, Cape Verde and Niger in the group stage of the qualifiers from where the top two sides from each pool will secure automatic qualification.
The Warriors and the Mighty Warriors’ failures sparked outrage among the local football fans and enthusiasts with the bulk of the criticism being targeted at the soccer mother body Zifa.
Zifa have also been summoned to appear before the same committee on the same day.
But it is the summons to Gorowa and Mugadza that is an unusual move given that the portfolio committee has normally dealt with reports and submissions they get from the associations.
Zifa chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze could last night only confirm that Gorowa and Mugadza had been asked to report to parliament but said the committee was in a “better position’’ suited to discuss the nature of their proposed discussions with the coaches.
“Parliament will be best suited to explain on ten invitations that they have extended to the senior men’s team coach and the senior women’s team coach.
“But I would like to think that parliament would want to get an appreciation from the coaches on their experience in the international assignments and the challenges they faced.
“We have also been invited as a board and our presentation will be generic and it will cover all facets of football from development, administration, finances and all the national teams and the board is meeting on Wednesday (tomorrow) to finalise on our presentation to parliament as well as the other items on the agenda such as the report of the High Performance committee,’’ Mashingaidze said.
It was, however, not immediately clear by last night whether Gorowa would be able to attend the parliamentary hearing as the coach was still holed up at his Johannesburg base and said he was awaiting indications from Zifa whether the association would be able to fly him to Harare in time for Thursday’s indaba.
Ironically, a day before the parliamentary portfolio committee hearing, the Zifa board is expected to decide Gorowa’s future and that of Mugadza and other national team coaches after discussing a report that was compiled by the High Performance Committee.
An earlier meeting between the ZRU and the legislators was shelved after the parliamentarians felt that it was imperative that the union be given enough time to fully focus on the senior team — the Sables’ — bid to qualify for the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England.
That dream by the senior rugby side ended in disappointment after the Sables lost to Russia in a play-off in Siberia on Saturday.
Online Reporter