THE new Zifa boss, Felton Kamambo ushered into office following Sunday’s polls which threw incumbent Philip Chiyangwa’s ambition to cling to power up in smoke in dramatic fashion, needs to cut short his victory celebrations and get down to serious business as of yesterday.
Editorial Comment
Kamambo needs to immediately correct all the wrongs committed during his predecessor’s reign in order to win back the corporate world’s confidence.
To start with, Chiyangwa failed to honour most of the brilliant promises that he had made as he sought election towards the end of 2015.
And as Kamambo walks into office, he will need to learn from Chiyangwa’s mistakes and work to improve the state of the game in the country. We have no doubt that a stumble or regression could also cost him the Zifa presidency come the next elections.
But one thing no one can take away from ‘captain fiasco’ is that under his administration, the Warriors qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations whose finals were held in Gabon last year.
That success at the top concealed the problems at the grassroots where development took a major step back.
We believe that Kamambo’s election is one of many good things that could have happened to our football given he is a former footballer himself and administrator. We applaud the councillors for being up to the task.
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Indeed, Kamambo would need to restore structures in the area zones so that development of future stars receives the attention that it deserves. There is also need to be transparent in the handling of finances as dust was raised under the previous administration, especially among football stakeholders.
Corporate sponsorship is scarce in the country with companies struggling and closing down, therefore Zifa must improve their handling of finances to attract sponsors. It is our contention that the Fifa and Caf “hand-outs” should be put to the best use for the game’s prosperity.
We believe that Zifa also need to open new revenue streams. Kamambo made some promises in that regard and we hope he will see these through.
Is it not ironic that the national teams currently do not have a kit sponsor? If truth be told the kit that national teams have been using of late resembles that of a social soccer team.
Clearly, sponsorship is not just about money, Zifa can engage partners to lessen the burden on their purse. Without taking anything away from Chiyangwa’s administration, there was some stability and consistence by remunerating national team players.
Under Chiyangwa, camping and travel struggles that were topical under Cuthbert Dube’s reign had disappeared. We urge Kamambo to borrow a leaf from Chiyangwa’s thought leadership to stabilise the Zifa ship.
We believe all teams should be treated equally with descent accommodation as well as remuneration. Focus should not only be on the senior men’s team — the Warriors.
Women’s football suffered neglect under Chiyangwa as he invested all his energies to the men and it’s something that should be fixed as we enter a new era.
There has been a lot of infighting in our football. We have had fights between Zifa and the Premier Soccer League as well as individuals. That should be a thing of the past as Kamambo is expected to foster unity for the game to prosper.
No doubt Kamambo and his board have their work cut out and the task at hand although it is a mammoth task, they simply need to work hard. In most of the cases, confusion emanated from the Zifa secretariat, and we hope the new Zifa broom would need to develop a thick skin as he would likely be subject of negative attacks from his detractors.
