Warriors boycott trip

Eddie Chikamhi Sports Reporter
THE Warriors yesterday aborted their trip to Malawi in yet another shameful day for crisis-ridden domestic football, boycotting the flight after a spectacular fallout with the ZIFA leadership over allowances and match fees.

It was yet another embarrassment for the association in a week that began badly with coach Callisto Pasuwa refusing to start work because he hasn’t been paid in the past nine months that he has been working with the Warriors and Young Warriors.

The Warriors are scheduled to play Malawi in the first of their six matches of an adventure to try and qualify for the 2017 Nations Cup finals.

The match is scheduled for Blantyre tomorrow and has already been pencilled to be broadcast live on SuperSport 3.

The Warriors did not turn up at Harare International Airport as expected, although Pasuwa and ZIFA officials were already at the airport.

The industrial action not only pushed the troubled association into a tight corner, but also left the Group L match against the Flames hanging in the balance as there are no direct flights to Malawi today.

ZIFA president Cuthbert Dube and chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze were last night trying to find a solution to the crisis and a meeting was held at Dube’s house where the football boss met the players.

The players asked for $500 each as match fees and $50 daily allowances, but the association was not prepared to release that much, citing their poor financial position.

About $2 200 that was also released by the Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture to pay for the day’s allowances was not handed over to the players.

There had been promises by Sports Minister Andrew Langa and ZIFA vice-president Omega Sibanda that more funds would be secured today and sent to the team, but given the toxic relationship between the players and the game’s leaders, the Warriors said it was hard for them to trust their leadership.

Mashingaidze yesterday said they had made it clear to the players that the association was not able to meet their demands, leading to the impasse.

Our sister newspaper H-Metro exclusively reported yesterday that the crisis exploded on Wednesday night after Mashingaidze addressed the players and told them that ZIFA were only prepared to part with $15 per player in daily allowances.

More meetings were held yesterday, but they could not reach common ground and, surprisingly, as the situation degenerated into a crisis, none of the ZIFA leaders were present at the team hotel to try and deal with the case.

Dube, the ZIFA president, only came into the picture last night when he called the players to his house, hours after they had boycotted the flight.

“We are getting into a meeting shortly for housekeeping issues, which housekeeping issues people had agreed on and then at the eleventh hour they said they would not take the kind of bargain that had been put together,” said Mashingaidze.

“We explained all the constraints and what we had in our kitting and the kind of model that we would use in terms of making good whatever we would make available to them.

“And then when leaving for the airport that’s when we heard they were not budging.”

The Warriors were technically homeless in the evening after checking out at Rainbow Towers where they had spent the previous night.

Mashingaidze said they were still hopeful of striking a deal with the players and arrange for them to travel to Malawi today.

The build-up to this match has not been smooth-sailing, with the team going into camp late. The delays were caused by the crisis involving Pasuwa.

The coach had threatened to quit over ZIFA’s failure to honour their financial obligations and inability to avail resources for the national team.

It had to take the intervention of Langa on Tuesday to persuade Pasuwa to work with the team while his issues were being considered.

The impasse hampered the preparations in a big way, with the team being announced only four days before the match. But just when everything appeared to have returned to normal in the Warriors camp, ZIFA had to grapple with a fresh crisis yesterday.

By the time their scheduled flight took off at 4:10pm yesterday, only Pasuwa and a host of ZIFA officials, who included Mashingaidze, were at the airport running around and asking for more time to allow check-in as they hoped the players would show up.

But the Warriors did not turn up as they sat in the team bus after checking out of the hotel.

Malawi Airlines officials said they did their best to try and accommodate ZIFA, but the communication from the association was poor.

Mashingaidze admitted that the chaos would affect the team’s performance on the field of play, but was still confident they will grind out a result.

He said there was no way Zimbabwe would fail to honour the fixture since it risked sanctions from CAF.

“It does (affect), but people need to salvage something out of the situation. Remember this is a tournament organised by CAF.

“It’s beyond us in terms of match proceedings, but the match is still on and that’s why we are going to have a meeting to plan,” said Mashingaidze.