Vusumuzi Dube
ZIMBABWE has dropped out of the top 20 of the Confederation of African Football rankings because of the country’s suspension from international football.
The country’s drop was inevitable because of the FIFA ban in all football tournaments such as Cosafa, Afcon, World Cup qualifiers, CAF Champions league, Confederations Cup and Cup Of Nations.
This has resulted in the country dropping down to 22nd place in the continental rankings.
Whenever a country has a participant in club continental football, its football association gets rewarded with points which in turn, result in the country’s position in the rankings.
Zimbabwe was supposed to be represented by league champions FC Platinum in the Champions League and Bulawayo Chiefs in the Confederations Cup for the just ended two tournaments.
Morocco, Egypt and Algeria are at the top the of the continental rankings while South Africa is the highest ranked country in Southern Africa as their teams Mamelodi Sundowns and Marumo Gallants have done well in their respective continental tournaments.
The country will definitely continue to sink deeper in terms of rankings if there is no participation in the continental tournaments as other countries will continue to gain points and leap frog Zimbabwe.
But there is a ray of hope from Fifa as a delegation is in the country exploring common ground with Zimbabwe before the country can return to international football.
Bongani Ndlovu