The Chronicle
By Ricky Zililo
24 September 2012
The future is gloom for the Young Warriors who dumped Mozambique out of the African Youth Championships at the weekend as Zifa has not secured funds to enable the team to travel to Congo Brazzaville next month. Zimbabwe beat Mozambique 2-0 in Maputo on Saturday having travelled by road for the game.
In a telephone interview after midday yesterday, the Zifa board member responsible for competitions and national teams, Benedict Moyo, said they were yet to plan for the Young Warriors’ next assignment.
He admitted that the national football motherbody faced financial constraints.
“The truth of the matter is that Zifa does not have any resources and this is why we are still on the road at this hour. We are under resourced and this makes planning difficult for us. It seems as if it is only the Zifa board that is worried about development and we have to undergo these competitions without government or stakeholders’ support.
“Other people do not see the need of developmental competitions and as for now it’s all gloom until we meet. We are happy that Minister David Coltart has called for an all-stakeholders meeting on Wednesday and we hope to get something from there,†said Moyo.
Zifa is hard-pressed to avoid the embarrassment that the national Under-20 men’s team faced after failing to travel to Angola for the return leg of their African Youth Championship qualifier last month.
Moyo said what made planning even more difficult is that many had written off the team having played to a two-all draw a fortnight ago in Gwanzura.
He said the Young Warriors’ friendly matches against Zambia where they lost 1-2 and drew the other game before their departure helped their cause.
The Young Warriors, according to Moyo, travelled without allowances to Mozambique.
“Zifa went deeper into debt due to this trip. The boys went without allowances but they did the nation proud. On our return, we were saved by Good Samaritans in Mutare who bought food for the players.
It is not a secret that Zifa is bankrupt but when you tell people that they don’t believe us,†he said.
Meanwhile, the Zifa board member said they would have to beef up the squad ahead of the Congo Brazzaville game and they would have to get funding to allow coaches to scout for talent throughout the country.
He said the players who will be called for junior national teams will have to undergo a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to determine their ages.
Already, there are concerns as to how accurate the MRI is following an incident where a Sobukhazi High School Form Four pupil Brandon Mpala was kicked out of the national team after he was said to have failed the test.
There are fears that Mpala’s results could have been switched to accommodate an over-aged player.
“Everyone has to go through the MRI scan because that is the only scientific way to prove one’s age. In the case of Mpala, we are waiting for the second opinion from his parents and after that we can then go for the third opinion,†said Moyo.
Chronicle sort to get to the bottom of Mpala’s saga with records at Mpilo Central Hospital showing that a baby boy was born to Dorcas Jekwa at 1700 hours on 26 March 1996. His record number is 69606 and the address given at the time of birth is still 2 Masiyephambili Flats in Mzilikazi where Mpala still lives with his family.
A visit to the Rabson Dlamini headed Mzilikazi Primary School revealed that the boy was admitted as a pupil in 2002 and finished his Grade Seven in 2008 and was in Grade 7C and his Zimsec Entry Number for the examination was 0329.
The second opinion disclosed that the player was born on 26 March 1996 and that there was no abnormality in his bone structure.
With the above results, could the scanner have been defective in Harare or somebody played around the bunch of X-rays and accommodated an over-aged player at the expense of the Bulawayo boy.
There are some players in the Young Warriors squad who went to Mozambique who have in the past been thrown out of the national Under-15s because they were suspected to be over-aged.