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Zifa sub-committees finalised

Sport
THE four-day-long Zifa meeting at the weekend finalised various sub-committees that will run the various aspects of the game until 2018.

THE four-day-long Zifa meeting at the weekend finalised various sub-committees that will run the various aspects of the game until 2018.

WELLINGTON TONI

The meeting started with the board on Thursday before the extraordinary meeting on Friday while the weekend saw a strategic planning meeting taking place.

Zifa president Cuthbert Dube and his deputy Omega Sibanda will not chair any of the sub-committees as they play a supervisory role over all bodies. The committees were confirmed by Zifa chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze.

Former Warriors defender John Phiri, who is a Zifa board member, will chair the referees and development committees while Fungai Chihuri-also a board member will oversee the competitions and sports medicine portfolios.

Tawengwa Hara is in charge of the Player Status Committee, Premier Soccer League chairman Twine Phiri will take care of futsal and beach soccer, Miriam Sibanda (women), while Bernard Gwarada will oversee the critical finance committee.

The disciplinary committee will be chaired by Andrew Msengezi while the appeals and ethics committees will be finalised in due course.

Dube said he was impressed by the level of deliberations in the last four days and is hopeful of positive progress in the national association.

“At the end of the day, a committee of seven members, two board members and some affiliates was put in place to come up with draft strategic plan by the end of August and we are hoping that the final document will be ready for launching by the end of September,” Dube said last night. “We want all our stakeholders, Fifa, the SRC, sponsors, stakeholders and the Government to be present at this launch. I am urging the board to stay focused so that we meet these objectives that will service the game of football.

“The first meeting of this committee will on August 16 and we are also hoping to appear before a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Sports, Arts and Culture next week to present our issues and the state of football in Zimbabwe.

“There are key result areas that we want to achieve between 2014 and 2018 and these are-competitions [local, regional and international], football development, administration of the game, marketing and communications and finance [debt] servicing and widening revenue streams.”

With the Warriors out of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, Zifa will, in the next week, finalise the issue of the national coach Ian Gorowa after recommendations were made by the High Performance Committee while the Under-17, 20, 23 and the Mighty Warriors coaches will also be unveiled. The Under-20 team will take part in the Region Five Games to be staged in Bulawayo from December 3-15 and need to get their preparations underway as soon as possible.

The Warriors will probably take part in the Cosafa Senior Challenge at the end of this year if it finds sponsors in South Africa after Botswana failed to host the 2014 edition.

Last year’s edition in Zambia was the first since 2009 and there needs to be continuation-on an annual basis-of this competition.