admin
Eddie Chikamhi Senior Sports Reporter
ZIFA have deferred their indaba where the board was set to confirm the dismissal of under-fire senior national football team coach Zdravko Logarusic from his job to tomorrow afternoon.
The meeting had been scheduled for yesterday, but the few hawks who are battling in Loga’s corner gave the Warriors coach a stay of execution.
The process has now turned into a poker showdown, with some ZIFA board members gambling on delaying tactics to try and shield the under-fire Croat, from the axe.
They believe a temporary reprieve by delaying the indaba, could help them find a way to manage the public anger which exploded after the Warriors fell to a shock World Cup defeat to Ethiopia on Tuesday.
With less pressure coming from the public, ZIFA board members who are on Loga’s side feel they will be able to find a way to push their agenda to keep the Croat in the job.
They have turned to the cocktail of tricks which football clubs usually use, called delaying tactics, to try and ease pressure coming from the opposition.
Suddenly, a ZIFA board which has used the power of their emergency committee on a number of occasions, were yesterday claiming the absence of some executive members, made it impossible for yesterday’s indaba to go ahead, as scheduled.
The ZIFA executive committee, led by Felton Kamambo, is battling to deflect the pressure from the football community which has apparently lost confidence in both the coach and the local football leadership following a string of lifeless displays by the senior national team.
The football leadership was supposed to meet in Harare yesterday, with the hot issue of the coach high on the agenda, but the indaba could not go ahead because of lack of quorum.
The ZIFA president Kamambo was seized with his long-running court battles to clear his name on allegations of vote-buying during the 2018 ballot that ushered him to power.
Some of the board members were unavailable as they were reportedly in Bulawayo attending to the association’s business.
Sources confided that it was proposed the meeting should now take place tomorrow afternoon. However, some board members were of the idea that it should have taken place today.
The leadership has to accommodate all the members for this important meeting, where the future of the Warriors technical bench is also set to be discussed.
It was still not clear whether the meeting would eventually take place after some board members indicated that the decision to fire the coach would need a holistic approach and carefully side-stepping the legal complications.
“Before the board sits for such a determination, the Technical and Development Committee has to review the performance of the team and the coach first and then make recommendations.
“It’s those recommendations that the board would then evaluate and come up with a binding decision. As far as I am concerned, the committee has not met yet so there is no way that we can meet now to sack the coach,” said the source.
However, it is interesting how ZIFA have been buying their time despite the obvious statistics that the coach is out of his depth at this level.
The flagship team has performed dismally in the last one-and-half years, under the tutelage of the Croatian gaffer. The 55-year-old has won just one game in 14 matches since he took charge of the senior national team.
Apart from qualifying for the 2021 AFCON finals, thanks largely to the four points garnered in the first two games of the qualifiers under Joey Antipas, the Warriors have found themselves bottom of the table in every other event they have participated this year.
They were last at the CHAN tournament in Cameroon earlier this year where they lost all three group games for the first time.
They also made a mockery of themselves at the recent COSAFA tournament, where they returned home with two points, despite having started off as the most successful team, with six trophies under their belt.
Loga has always maintained that his mandate was the AFCON and World Cup qualifiers. But the lifeless performances in the opening two games against South Africa and Ethiopia in the World Cup qualifiers have vindicated the critics.
The ZIFA board has long been divided over the issue of Loga as he has some backers who are reportedly fighting tooth and nail for selfish egos.
Apparently, the ZIFA Technical and Development Committee has since made a recommendation to relieve the coach of his duties, based on the dismal statistics.
Surprisingly the board responded by playing the populist card when they roped in former Zimbabwe captain Benjani Mwaruwari as a third assistant, to work along Tonderai Ndiraya and Lloyd Chitembwe.
But most of the board members are disillusioned and are ready to see the right thing done, especially after board member Sugar Chagonda had penned a strongly-worded letter to the association’s president describing the coach as a “liability” and “an albatross on our necks.”
It is clear that Loga’s time is now up. The board members are ready to vote for his ouster.
He will leave his team bottom of the table in the 2022 World Cup Group G qualifiers without a goal and just a point to their credit, after the opening two rounds of the campaign.
His time in charge of the Warriors has deeply divided local football and transformed ZIFA into fire-fighters, who are always scrambling to try and defend his glaring shortcomings.
He has also lost control of his dressing room, with his criticism of players, instead of his tactical flaws, deflating morale among the Warriors.
The Warriors haven’t scored in their last three AFCON/World Cup qualifiers with their last goal coming from a rebound, in a Nations Cup qualifier, against Botswana, in Francistown.
Online Reporter