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Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
GOVERNMENT yesterday said the crisis that engulfed the Warriors’ training camp on Wednesday night, which forced coach Ian Gorowa to use his personal funds to buy food for his players to have their supper, was unfortunate and would never be allowed to happen again.
Sport, Arts and Culture Minister, Andrew Langa, said it was unacceptable for the coach to bail out the national senior football team and measures would be put in place that Gorowa doesn’t find himself in the same situation again and the Warriors don’t face a similar crisis.
Langa told The Herald yesterday that although the nation was facing challenges, it was unacceptable for the country’s flagship sporting team to find itself in a situation where their meals were not guaranteed and the coach had to run around to organise supper for them.
Finance and Economic Development Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, yesterday allocated US$10 450 000 to the Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture when he presented the 2014 National Budget with US$1,595 million set aside for the Sports Commission, a further US$3,5 million set aside for construction works and US$600 000 set aside for the African Union Sports Council Region Five Under-20 Youth Games.
The Warriors are in camp preparing for the CHAN finals in South Africa next month, where they will make their third straight appearance, in the tournament that caters only for players plying their trade on the domestic front.
Langa said the Warriors would never walk alone in their quest to write a success story when they compete with 15 other teams in South Africa next year for the CHAN title.
“As Government we would like to say that it’s unfortunate that we had an incident where the national coach, Ian Gorowa, ended up feeding the Warriors,” said Langa.
“While we are facing some challenges as a nation, there is no way that this should be allowed to come to a situation where we end up with the national coach having to buy food for the national team players.
“I’m not pointing a finger at anyone but I just want to assure the nation that this will not be allowed to happen again and, as of this morning (yesterday), I have been in touch with Zifa and the Sports Commission discussing this issue and measures will be put in place to ensure that this does not happen again.”
Last month, Langa met sports editors in Harare and, flanked by deputy Tabetha Kanengoni-Malinga, promised that it won’t be business as usual for sport in this country and administrators will be pressed to deliver for their constituencies in a grand scheme to take local sport to a successful level.
“I want to assure the nation that our team will definitely deliver,” Langa, said.
“We have been consulting with those fundis in cricket, those fundis in soccer. We have the zeal, the wish as a ministry to ensure that our people in Zimbabwe get what they want in sport.
“We want to move away from this thing of taking sport as entertainment but as something that can create employment and deliver food on the table for our athletes.
“I don’t think that we will fail the country.”
Langa said they will work to help the associations get the funding they desperately need and promised that, as from January next year, no representative national team will fail to fulfill its international assignments because of a shortage of funds.
Zifa, who are weighed down by a huge debt, have struggled to finance the operations of the national football teams with the association’s president Cuthbert Dube having to dip into his pockets to bankroll some of the assignments.
Gorowa wanted to take his Warriors to South Africa, for a 20-day training camp, but was forced to review his programme after Zifa advised him that they didn’t have the financial muscle, right now, to fund the exercise.
The Warriors coach, who had managed to secure discounted rates for the team’s accommodation and was going to pay expert fitness coaches from his pocket, felt that a training camp in South Africa was important so that his players would not be distracted by the events that crop up at their homes.
But, with Zifa unable to finance the camp in South Africa, Gorowa had to settle for a local camp which got underway this week.
However, the training camp was disrupted on Wednesday evening when the Warriors were advised that no supper had been prepared for them because their hosts, at a housing complex in Harare, had exhausted their resources in feeding them since they came into camp.
Without any injection of fresh funds from Zifa, who had promised to pay for the team’s accommodation and food expenses during their time in camp at that complex, their hosts said they could not afford to secure food supplies for the Warriors.
Faced with a very difficult situation, Gorowa ended up using his own money to secure food for his players to have their supper.
“It’s sad that a national team that is preparing for a major tournament can be told that there is no supper for them because the association hasn’t paid for the food yet,” Gorowa told The Herald on Wednesday night.
“I never imagined that it could happen to any national football team in the world. Our hosts, who have treated us very well since we came into camp, told me that they have exhausted all their resources taking care of us since we got here.
“They said they have been promised that there will be some payment and have been waiting for the money, while using their funds for our upkeep, but so far nothing has come and they couldn’t do any more.
“I had no choice, really, but to buy the boys some food for their supper. I’m not pointing a finger at anyone but l feel it’s important that we all look at ourselves in the mirror,” he said.
“This is our national football team and we have to give it a little bit of respect and also help it, with the basics, so that it can be successful.
“We must ask ourselves some tough questions because this is as bad as it can get for a national team, being told that there is no food for you guys when you are in camp.”
On Tuesday, Zifa president Dube said it was impossible for his association to keep funding the national team in what was a loud appeal to
Government and companies in this country to chip in and help them.
“A national team cannot be serviced by a football association whose huge debts are public knowledge,” Dube said as he unveiled a new kit, supplied by British sportswear firm Umbro, to be used by the Warriors during the CHAN finals.
Gorowa played a huge role in securing that kit deal.
“A national team cannot be sponsored by the Zifa president when other national teams, the world over get sponsorship from their governments and sponsors.
“The senior national team’s preparations and participation at the 2014 CHAN tournament require sponsorship in respect of apparel, transport, full board accommodation, allowances, beverages, and other cost centres.
“I once more appeal for sponsors to come to the party in support of the Warriors and other national teams.”
Online Reporter