‘Zifa are amateurs’

News Day

By Fortune Mbele

178June 2013

FORMER Warriors coach and Zifa technical director Gibson Homela has blamed the domestic football governing body for the Warriors’ failures, saying the deep-seated problems bedevilling football in the country needed wide consultations with knowledgeable sportspersons for the revival and growth of the game.

The Warriors crashed out of the World Cup qualifiers for the umpteenth time, losing their last two matches in eight days 2-4 to Egypt at home on June 9 and 1-0 to Guinea in Conakry where they travelled with a depleted squad following chaotic preparations by Zifa for the tie.

The veteran Fifa instructor yesterday told NewsDay Sport that success for the senior national team was not in sight in the near future as long as the football authorities in the country behaved incompetently.

“It is clear that we still have challenges in assembling a team and this muddling starts with Zifa. They are amateurish standards as far as I am concerned. For instance, how does a player lose his passport?
“In our days it was known that the manager is in charge of the passports.

“What we are harvesting is the amateurish way of doing things. We are just doing things randomly. Zifa is bungling and I think a neutral man with a lot of experience in football is needed for the reconstruction of the Warriors,” Homela said.

Homela, who played for the national team and Zimbabwe Saints during his days, said football administration in the country needed a “Caesarean section”.

He is an ex-member of the Zifa high performance technical team together with the likes of former player and coach Misheck Chidzambwa.

Homela also took aim at the Education, Sport, Arts and Culture ministry which he said was also not playing its part in ensuring the national team’s success.

“People need to consult further. A Caesarean section of the whole system is called for with all stakeholders taking part: Premier Soccer League bosses and football veterans, among others, who can contribute positively towards the growth of the game. The ministry has also not done any enforcing.

“They are the biggest culprits. Maybe they should just drop the Sports and just be an Education and Culture ministry and these people who are running our football are not properly guided,” Homela said.

Amid the latest gaffe by Zifa, Education, Sport, Art and Culture minister David Coltart said his ministry had not been approached for assistance.

Homela was the Warriors coach from 1985 to 1988 on a part-time basis, resigning at the end of that year after he was employed by a clothing retail chain and then became the Zifa technical director from 2002 to 2006 before stepping down.

He is chairman at Chikwata and from last week on Monday, he conducted a Level Two coaching course in Kadoma which ended on Sunday.

In the Group G Africa 2014 World Cup qualifiers, Zimbabwe have played five matches and have only managed one draw, salvaging a meagre point from Mozambique away from home, and lost both home and away to Egypt and Guinea.

They host Mozambique in the remaining match on September 6.

Coaches that include Norman Mapeza, Madinda Ndlovu, Rahman Gumbo and incumbent Klaus Dieter Pagels have been thrown into the fray with no consistency and continuity in the Warriors camp.