Newsday
Sport Comment
May 21 2011
Major leagues in Europe and closer in neigbouring South Africa, end this weekend.
For Zimbabwe, the focus is on all players called up for the Warriors-Mali 2012 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier set for June 5 being in the country at least by Monday, at the earliest.
That will give enough time to coach Norman Mapeza and his technical team to camp for longer to prepare for that crucial tie. We have seen longer camps work, the Mighty Warriors spent more than two months in camp for their All-Africa Games qualifiers and they are off to Maputo in September for the finals.
The Warriors team has been named and communication has been sent to various teams for the release of called-up players, as per procedure, although there should be no problem as the seasons are rounding off this weekend in overseas leagues.
Naturally, there will be one or two players not immediately available as they will be sorting out contractual issues, notably Justice Majabvi at Lask Linz in Austria, whose contract runs out end of June.
But there is always an Achilles heel here, one organisation called Zifa.
Really, one does not know what to say or do with this organisation. Vice-President John Nkomo is interested in assisting this organisation to its financial dire straits by doing some work behind the scenes, but will his work be rewarded, considering Zifa president Cuthbert Dube’s corporate governance theme and transparency in the administration of the scarce financial resources?
Has Education, Art, Sports and Culture minister David Coltart given up on Zifa this early? Yes, we know he was given $800 000 for all sporting disciplines for 12 months by his counterpart Tendai Biti at the Finance Ministry, but surely something can be sourced from somewhere?
Can’t we get a slice of diamond revenues from Mines minister Obert Mpofu just to pay for accommodation for the team for two weeks and the hosting of Mali and match officials for an additional five days?
Mpofu and Biti, for now, will say they are concerned with issues of civil servants’ salaries. And we understand that.
If we can raise $300 000 for some individual called Munya Chidzonga for some Big Brother nonsense, surely we can’t fail to raise that same amount to pay allowances and appearance fees for 23 players?
What a shame!
Not withstanding all that, Zifa has no choice, they just have to run around and organise the funds for this major assignment. Not to talk about raising an additional $67 000 to pay Sunday Chidzambwa!
Last time, for the trip to Mali, Dube had to put up title deeds to one of his properties to secure funds from a local bank. Can he continue to do that? No he cannot, otherwise he will just collapse due to debt.
The board has a member (marketing) Nigel Munyati, an expert in his field, but he has not made the Zifa brand and its flagship, the Warriors, known to the world and more importantly visible to the corporate sector. No wonder fans wear South African national football team jerseys to Warriors matches.
Zifa just has to raise money and offer no excuses this time around. They need to do more than spend time on Chidzambwa, Tom Saintfiet and Henrietta Rushwaya; the trucks, generators and Toyota Virgos will not pay the players.
What is needed is some confidence in the corridors of power, both political and corporate, that better things can be achieved with the senior national team or everybody will just put their money on the Mighty and Young Warriors.