THE senior national women’s football team, the Mighty Warriors, failed to travel to Ivory Coast for a second round, first leg of the Olympic Games qualifiers match due to financial problems bedevilling national football association Zifa.
What this means is that Zimbabwe will be fined $1 000 by Fifa.
This is a big blow to the girl child and something that should not be allowed to happen again.
In addition, Zimbabwe has only five days to save their participation in the 2018 World Cup by paying former Warriors coach Valinhos his $81 000 debt.
Zifa has bitten too much, more that it can chew: they have the Under-23s taking part in two competitions for the Africa Games finals and the Olympics qualifiers.
The senior national team has the 2016 Africa Nations Championships (Chan) qualifiers and they still have two matches to play against Lesotho later this year.
They are also in the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, which they started so well with a 2-1 win against Malawi away.
As the Zifa assembly holds its combined general meeting and extraordinary meeting this Saturday, we implore our football councillors to take the right decision to save the national game.
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If the councillors decide that forcing Zifa president Cuthbert Dube out of office will save football, then let it be.
The councillors must not be driven by personal motives or external agendas, but by the need to save the national game at all costs.
That Dube and chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze have failed, is no longer an issue for debate it’s now a “scratched record”.
We need solutions for the game and not a fixation on individuals.
The bigger problem, besides Dube and Mashingaidze, has been the Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture.
The head of the ministry Andrew Langa has decided to keep quiet and rightly so because he has nothing to say.
His deputy Tabitha Kanengoni-Malinga has tried to bring about changes, but was caught in an embarrassing gaffe two weeks back in Parliament after claiming that the Warriors failed to fly to Malawi because Zifa had misused the $2 000 that her ministry had provided for air tickets.
It remains a fact that Air Malawi tried to delay their flight to allow the Warriors to board on that day. It also remains a stubborn fact the Warriors, because tickets had been bought, returned home after the match on Air Malawi.
What Kanengoni-Malinga has succeeded in doing is diverting attention from the real issue affecting all sports in Zimbabwe.
There is no national sports policy, pure and simple.
That alone means there can be no model to fund and support sport. No one has said a word about the hockey team’s failure to travel to Egypt for Olympic qualifiers.
Fixation on a failing organisation like Zifa will not save Zimbabwean sport.
Instead a wholesome approach to sport in Zimbabwe is the way forward.
The problem is bigger than Dube and Mashingaidze.
The economy is in a mess. Companies are closing. Those that are operating are failing to pay salaries. It’s a clear leadership decline in Zimbabwe, right from the top, not just Zifa.
Even Premier Soccer League sponsors, Delta Beverages are cutting down on employees; big football sponsors like BancABC have cut their funding to Dynamos and Highlanders.
And we still think its Zifa.
