ZRU retains Jani

Petros Kausiyo
Sports Editor

TWO years after he successfully steadied a turbulent ship, Aaron Jani has been rewarded with the stewardship of the Zimbabwe Rugby Union and will officially be handed a fresh mandate at their annual meeting at Prince Edward School in Harare this morning.

The domestic rugby family, happy with the way Jani has turned around the union, has re-elected his entire leadership which includes his deputies Martin Shone and Losson Mtongwiza and interim treasurer Josephine Makore unopposed.

ZRU chief executive Sifiso Made confirmed that there had been no challengers for the union’s top three positions after those that had initially put their heads into the contesting hats for vice-presidents’ (North and South positions) had withdrawn their candidature.

Made said Jani was the first to be unopposed before being joined by his trusted lieutenants when both Shone and Mtongwiza’s would-be opponents pulled out.

This means the trio will now serve their first full term of four years as they had initially come in to complete the remaining two years of the deposed Nyararai Sibanda leadership.

Although he was naturally excited, Jani however, told The Sunday Mail that his leadership would not rest on their laurels on the basis that they had been handed a four-year term and believes the best way to repay the rugby family for the confidence reposed in them, “would be to take the national game to another level’’.

The former Zimbabwe international reflected on the turbulent period during which they had to steer the ZRU back to normalcy and in the process avoiding sanctions from World Rugby.

Business had literally ground to a halt at the union during the forgettable era under Sibanda which ended with the intervention of the Sports and Recreation Commission who stepped in and appointed an interim committee.

“I think as a refresher people forget that there were no computers, debts were mounting, we had lawyers chasing us and wanting to attach any little property that was left at the union.

“There was no vehicle for use by the administration and the administrator had to use a kombi, no phones, no internet as all that had been closed due to debts.

“We had to organise payment plans for all the debts and we had to go to each and everyone who was owed. We were also top-heavy and overstaffed for the amount of grants we were getting and we had to freeze salaries.

“It took us 12 months to settle in and get some sort of normalcy and the biggest one was that there were no salaries for union staff, we had to talk to them and give them our plan in terms of what we were hoping to achieve within the two years that was to come.

“Now I can confidently say 90 percent of the debts have been paid and within the next three months we will totally be debt free,’’ Jani said.

He said they had been forced to fund the national teams only after settling their debt legacy.

“We came up with a comprehensive payment plan for the creditors which was acceptable to them. The resources that were left after that went into the national teams, that is the Cheetahs, Sables and the Academy side’’.

Jani said although they had challenges with debt-clearing, the major highlight of his first tenure with the union was getting the Sables and other national teams fulfilling their obligations.

“The major highlight is that rugby has been played and we met all international obligations. We have managed to meet our salary obligations every month without fail and we have managed to make sure that the secretariat has all the administration tools they need to get the job done.

“We have also settled our debts with World Rugby and Rugby Africa and with World Rugby we are now in good standing’’.

The ZRU have also made good their standing with the SRC while capacity building for coaches, referees and administrators has also been placed high on the priority list.

“We have conducted coaching courses for referees, first aid and administrators throughout the provinces.

“These were largely free of charge and funded by the union. We have managed to identify individuals in coaching, refereeing, administration and first aid to be sent for specialised courses for educators to be funded by World Rugby,’’ he said.

Although the Sables failed to make it to the 2019 Rugby World Cup, they found some small consolation when winning the Victoria Cup, while the academy side featured in the South African SuperSport Challenge.

Jani also spiced his stay at the helm of the ZRU by being voted among the five elected members of the Rugby Africa executive committee last year.

It was a rare move for local rugby administrators given that the continental body’s executive is normally dominated by North Africans.

For all the progress made, Jani, however, also acknowledged that his union could have done better with the Sevens side, the junior teams and the women’s game.

“Resources are always a big challenge. Resourcing the union especially for the junior teams and Cheetahs has been a challenge and we have had to ask for parents to support.

“We could have done with more game time for the Cheetahs, women and even the Sables.

“It is critical that we highlight women and that we managed to get them funding to play South Africa and Zambia, got them kits as well as playing their scheduled tournaments under World Rugby and Rugby Africa but we can still do more in terms of funding for women.’’

As they get their first full substantive term, Jani, Shone and Mtongwiza know they will have to make the domestic league competitive and ensure there is sponsorship for the Super 6.

“The state of the economy has been devastating for us and we have had to prioritise tournaments, we had to prioritise the acceptance of invitations to different tournaments.

“We have had to also scale down on our development plans, we had to scale back on our training and education plan and we had to scale down on our player welfare,’’ Jani said.

He, however, paid tribute to some of the clubs for their ingenuity.

“It has been a mixed bag, some clubs have shown resilience, clubs like Raiders, Mutare and Old Georgians have toured with their own resources.

“Where we have a challenge is Bulawayo Metro, where not much rugby has been played since the international against Kenya and the board is seized with ensuring that normalcy returns to that province.

“We need to increase the head count of teams, of people playing rugby and we need to have the Varsity League to operate at full throttle.

“There is a need to bring the defence forces teams on stream, our neighbours Zambia have five defence forces teams and there is no reason why Zimbabwe as a powerhouse can’t have such.

“We have started the Under-20 league and we need to capacitate the clubs in terms of administration which has seen others performing well and others lagging a bit,’’ Jani said.