admin
Tadious Manyepo, Sports Reporter
HEART stadium could have been the perfect home setting for Dynamos and Ngezi Platinum in their Confederation of African Football inter-club competitions next month had ZIFA been proactive in dealing with key issues of the game.
Ngezi Platinum Stars will represent the country in the CAF Champions League while the Glamour Boys play in the CAF Confederation Cup.
However, both clubs will have to host their opponents in the preliminary round outside the country as there are no approved facilities for international football in Zimbabwe.
Ngezi Platinum Stars, who face the DR Congo side AS Maniema have already settled for the National Heroes Stadium in Lusaka, Zambia while Dynamos will welcome Zambia’s ZESCO United at the National Stadium in Gaborone, Botswana. This will be the first time that local clubs will play home games away from home in the CAF inter-club competitions.
Yet the two sides might not have been in this awkward situation had ZIFA acted swiftly and grabbed the olive branch that CAF had extended to member associations to approach them for stadium compromise deals, especially for the first and second preliminary rounds.
There are no Zimbabwean venues on the list of stadiums published by CAF for the first and second preliminary rounds of the CAF inter-clubs 2024-25 qualifiers.
But CAF did issue a statement, which other associations including the Football Association of Malawi promptly responded to, urging federations, who felt they have facilities, which could be looked into once more and host the upcoming matches to approach them.
In a statement, the continental football body’s tournaments and events director Samson Adamu said: “So, please any federation that (feels) their stadium is not listed as pre-approved, there is no major concern if you think that your stadium is up to the required standards within the deadline (of July 19) set by CAF.
“The list is subject to ongoing stadium assessment, stadium inspection procedures put in place by CAF, and any federation wanting to have its stadium approved that is not in that list, it’s still possible.
“They just have to follow the procedure, which is that the club licencing manager of the federation should conduct a pre-inspection of that stadium and submit the information or the report in the club in the online platform stadium module along with all the information, the checklist and also the link of the photos in the system. So, the club licensing managers are very much aware that this procedure is not new.
“Always the club licensing manager should proceed and conduct the pre-inspection and then submit that pre-inspection in the online platform in the stadium module for the club.”
Surprisingly for Zimbabwe, the ZIFA Normalisation Committee claimed they were not aware of CAF’s position and they had resigned to seeing Dynamos, Ngezi Platinum Stars, and the Warriors hosting international games away from home.
Normalisation Committee chairman Lincoln Mutasa reportedly didn’t even attempt to act even after he was told of the development by the Premier Soccer League and CAPS United president Farai Jere. Appearing before a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Sport, Arts and Recreation, last week, Mutasa revealed that he was unaware of CAF’s position on stadiums.
“Yes, I was not aware of that,” Mutasa said.
“We are looking into that (stadium inspections).”
But by the time Mutasa gave his responses in Parliament, the CAF deadline for “stadium appeals” had already lapsed.
Jere told the ZIFA boss that: “Dynamos and Ngezi Platinum need that home advantage when representing the country.
“Heart Stadium, Barbourfields, or even Rufaro stood very good chances to be given the nod to host the games.”
Heart Stadium, famed for its suspended playing turf and whose commissioning on December 10 last year, was snubbed by Mutasa and all the ZIFA leadership had a good chance of passing the CAF inspection.
Online Reporter