Online Reporter
Inside ZIFA-Nqobile Magwizi
THERE are moments in football that become more than football.
Tomorrow night, the Warriors will walk out at the National Sports Stadium (NSS) to play a competitive international match on home soil for the first time since November 14, 2021, when Zimbabwe hosted Ethiopia in a FIFA World Cup qualifier.
It is difficult to fully describe what that means.
That night in 2021, few of us could have imagined that the next time the Warriors would walk out for an international fixture at home would be almost five years later.
Soon after that match, the NSS was barred from hosting international football because it did not meet the required standards.
For Zimbabwean football, the consequences went far beyond the inconvenience of changing venues. We lost something fundamental — we lost our home.
For years, our national teams have had to carry the Zimbabwean flag into stadiums beyond our borders. Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda and other countries opened their doors to us when circumstances left us without an approved home venue.
We remain grateful to those nations, their governments, football associations and people for giving our teams somewhere to play. However welcoming a host country may be, there is no substitute for home. There is something different about walking into a stadium and knowing that the people in the stands have not come to just watch a football match, but to see their country represented on its own soil.
That feeling cannot be measured in financial terms. It is the feeling of hearing the national anthem at the NSS. It is the sight of the Zimbabwean flag moving through a home crowd.
It is a young supporter seeing the Warriors in person and understanding that this is what representing the nation looks and feels like.
Before they come home, our Warriors have reminded us of something important about the Warrior character of this team.
In Morocco, against Sierra Leone, they went two goals down, but refused to surrender. They fought their way back to level the match before scoring the winner in the 88th minute to complete a remarkable 3-2 victory.
That result belongs to the players and the technical team, but it also speaks to something we want to see increasingly in Zimbabwean football: resilience, belief and the determination to keep competing until the final whistle. Now they return home and tomorrow, we get that feeling back.
But this is not a regular return to an old stadium. The NSS has undergone significant rehabilitation and modernisation, driven by the Government through the Ministry of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture, with important private-sector support from Sakunda Holdings.
The transformation includes the installation of modern bucket seats; rehabilitation of the playing surface and drainage; improvements to team facilities; electronic turnstiles; security systems, including CCTV cameras; upgraded perimeter fencing; and a modern venue operations centre, alongside improvements to water and sanitation systems.
The Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) played an important technical role in guiding the process. These interventions matter because international football has changed. The standards required of modern football venues are higher, and Zimbabwe must aspire to meet those standards consistently.
We acknowledge and appreciate the leadership of President Mnangagwa and the Government for supporting the restoration of this important national sporting asset.
We also recognise the Ministry of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture and all the technical teams and partners whose work has brought us to this moment. We particularly acknowledge Sakunda Holdings for its investment in the stadium’s modernisation.
This is what partnership in sport should look like: the Government providing leadership and national direction, technical institutions providing expertise, and the private sector contributing resources to help restore infrastructure that belongs to the nation. But tomorrow night will also be a test. A stadium is not truly restored because it has new seats and a rehabilitated pitch. It must be respected, properly used and maintained.
The responsibility, therefore, does not end with the Government, the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA), the SRC or our private partners. It belongs to all of us. The NSS is a national asset. Every supporter who enters through those gates has a responsibility to protect it. We must not repeat the cycle in which infrastructure is rehabilitated only to deteriorate because we fail to respect and maintain it.
The Warriors’ return also carries a sporting responsibility. We have spent years travelling to find temporary homes. Now we have the opportunity to build a genuine home advantage again. Tomorrow’s match is a night fixture. It is being played on a Monday. In ordinary circumstances, either of those factors might make it difficult to create the atmosphere associated with a major international match. But this is not an ordinary match.
It is a homecoming.
I want to thank the Zimbabwean football supporters who continued to follow the Warriors during the years when we were forced to play away from home. Now, let us fill the available seats at the NSS and make the return of the Warriors memorable. Let us show our players that Zimbabwe stands with them.
There is also something larger happening here. The return of international football to Harare is a statement about the direction of Zimbabwean football. We are rebuilding, restoring and raising standards. And we are reclaiming our place in the national sporting conversation.
The journey has not been easy. There is still work to be done, and we must continue addressing the remaining requirements and maintaining the standards that have brought us back to this point. But progress must also be recognised when it happens.
Tomorrow night, when the Warriors walk through that tunnel and onto the pitch, they will not just be entering a stadium. They will be walking back into history. And when the national anthem is sung beneath the lights of the NSS once again, it will be a declaration. Zimbabwean football is home.
The work continues.
Nqobile Magwizi is the president of ZIFA.
