Zifa target World Cup qualification

RECENTLY appointed Zifa technical director, Jethro Chemmy Hunidzarira says the national association’s dream is to see the Warriors qualify for the World Cup finals.

Hunidzarira said this on the sidelines of the stakeholders meeting held at Raylton Sports Club where a number of administrators from the region attended yesterday.

From the conversations it was clear yesterday that the national association has not had a functional development pathway to be followed. There is no national football playing philosophy as well.

He said the meeting, one of many he is seized with, is seeing him going to all provinces and meeting former players, coaches, legends and regional and provincial administrators.

The mission is to find common ground on the way forward for the game and to court favour from all involved with football.

There are few developmental projects on the horizon and this he says has affected national teams. He said despite all the challenges of the past he is hopeful Zimbabwe football may be on the rebound and only unity of performance could save the situation and ensure Zimbabwe’s passage to the World Cup finals.

He said talent levels from junior development were now low. Hunidzarira appears to concur with thousands that local football is no longer as exciting as it was in the past.

“We are struggling with the national teams since our PSL is not good enough because of the quality of the players they are inheriting. We want to see clubs train juniors. We want them to go back to where they curtain raise with players not in the first team, playing in the reserve league, so that they get game time. Our ultimate goal is to have the senior national team qualifying for the World Cup finals,” said the Zifa technical director.

Hunidzarira emphasized that grassroots and junior development were the way to go and he is happy that there is a buy in.

He said he does not want people to say others are buying their way into national teams, he wants players to be selected on merit as a result of junior development structures that would be in place and bearing result.

Over the years, there have been fights for the control of the national team, with some local agents managing coaches and players while the foreign legion now known as the British Brigade have their own handlers. This has been at the expense of the nation and the Warriors’ performance, which they seem not to care about as long as their players are capped for better reviews in Europe.

Hunidzarira also said there will be a framework in the future for clubs and academies to have automatic compensation for their players.

Last week, Bhekimpilo Nyoni of BN Soccer Academy said they were being ripped off on their developed talent. Big clubs are not compensating them.

This, he said, had a negative impact on them as they were struggling to survive.

Hunidzarira said it was critical at this stage to establish what the situation on the ground is like. He emphasized that it was important to have buy-in from everyone involved in the sport, so that those that produce players are paid.

He said Zifa will come up with a framework to help everyone be compensated accordingly in line with Fifa regulations.

Hunidzarira said junior structures had collapsed and needed revamping as they were the foundation for the future of the game in Zimbabwe.

He emphasized that any meaningful development would have to have grassroots development as the cornerstone. And for success to be there, it would have to be a collective effort that embraces everyone as a few people cannot have solutions for the game.

“It is my intent to meet stakeholders from a technical point of view, coaches, former players, administrators, legends both men and women, academy owners, old referees, coaches, youth developers, to establish where our football is, where did we go wrong? Our football development system is broken down.

“There is no more junior league football to talk about, it is almost non-existent. That is the foundation of football, if we do not have it, it’s like building a house without a foundation, we have to start from District to Area Zone up to Region, we have to sit down and understand where we went wrong, football is not something where a few people can say we are doing ourselves, it involves millions of people, we have to sensitise them, we want to have a buy in,” said Hunidzarira on the sidelines of the meeting with stakeholders yesterday.