ZIFA ineptitude to blame for Warriors failure

These were the final words of Zimbabwes former national football team coach Brazilian Jorge Valinhos during a press conference in Harare last year, moments after ZIFA had terminated his contract. Public opinion was hugely in favor of such a move by ZIFA, with football fans across the country heaving a huge sigh of relief at the sacking of a coach they squarely blamed for the Warriors numerous unsuccessful hunting forays. The evidence that the Warriors were fast destroying the solid reputation and respect they had built for themselves in football circles by making two successive appearances at the African Cup of Nations in 2004 and 2006 was there for all to see.

Real cause

Quite how within a relatively short period a team could stumble from the highs of beating seasoned African campaigners such as the Black Stars of Ghana and Desert Foxes of Algeria to the lows of being held to a draw at home by Kenya (a nation more popular for its prowess in long distance running than football) left soccer fans scratching their heads for answers. This is why Valinhos probably had few sympathisers when he departed from the Warriors hot seat. However, for all his technical shortcomings, Valinhos was nonetheless able to diagnose the real cause of Zimbabwes dismal soccer record ZIFAs ineptitude!

The problems encountered by Valinhos were brought about by ZIFAs inept failure to remunerate him for about six months. A former coach of junior national teams in Brazil, Valinhos short stint with the Warriors was admittedly disastrous. But this does not take away the fact that he comes from a country considered the kings of soccer with a record five World Cup titles to show for it. Valinhos was therefore more than qualified to lecture ZIFA on how things should be done. Against such a background of events, it is not a coincidence that Sunday Chidzambwa one of the finest coaches in the country found himself in the same boat as Valinhos when he recently travelled with his troops to South Africa for an international friendly against Bafana Bafana.

Outstanding payments owed to him were yet to be paid and the continued silence from ZIFA over the issue since then, suggests that the same chaos that saw Valinhos going for months with a salary persists at ZIFA head office.

Bad leadership

This does not speak well for the future of the game in the country and reflects badly on the leadership style of the football mother body. Give the way ZIFA have managed the national team and the game in general, the 0 3 Warriors defeat to Bafana Bafana was hardly surprising and it is difficult to imagine a coach who could have fared better under such circumstances. And such a drubbing in a FIFA-sanctioned international match meant Zimbabwe dropping to 117th on the February 2010 FIFA world rankings, a development that has an adverse effect on the careers and aspirations of locally based players as clubs from most major European leagues particularly the English Premiership hardly consider footballers from countries ranked outside the top 100.

The kind of leadership being shown by ZIFA chief executive officer Henrietta Rushwaya and chairman Wellington Nyatanga at a time when Chidzambwa and the national team are supposed to be solely focused on preparing for the upcoming African Nations Cup and World Cup qualifiers later in the year is retrogressive to the development of the game in the country. One of Irelands greatest football sons and former Manchester United midfielder Roy Keane who now coaches a team in England once said: Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

Uncertainty over wages

For ZIFA to fail to pay the national coach while its chief executive draws her salary every month without fail is hardly the way to motivate the coach to break his back for the team. How can Chidzambwa be expected to chart the way forward for the Warriors while uncertainties remain over his wages? It is apparent that the patriotism of Chidzambwa who has fared better than any local or foreign coach when in charge of the Warriors is being exploited by those within the ZIFA corridors of power. Gone are the days when winning the COSAFA Cup was accepted as a yardstick upon which to measure the potency of the Warriors.

While the countrys achievement last year of becoming the first to win the COSAFA title for the fourth time is commendable, it would be misleading to regard the Warriors as a regional football powerhouse based on these statistics. The likes of Angola, South Africa and Zambia who have all won the COSAFA title three times each have been successful in using the cup competition in identifying talented players and giving them the international exposure they need to blossom. Through sheer determination and a professional approach to football administration, Angola managed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup while together with South Africa and Zambia the trio has featured more regularly than Zimbabwe in the African Cup of nations.

Celebrating mediocrity

South Africa can actually boast of having won the Nations Cup while Zambia almost achieved the same feat in 1994. One would have thought that the likes of ZIFA chairman Wellington Nyatanga who have been in football for a long time would have taken a leaf from the achievements of the Rafik Khan-led ZIFA administration. Despite his personal shortcomings, Khan and his colleagues were at least able to mobilise the business community in supporting the cause of the national squad and this ensured that both the coach and his charges did not spend valuable time haggling over wage-related issues while on national duty. Such leadership was the foundation upon which Chidzambwa was able to apply his coaching skills in masterminding the Warriors historic Nations Cup debut seven years ago.

It was then easier for Charles Mhlauri to build on Chidzambwas initial success as he used the same core of history-making players to engineer a successive appearance at the same tournament, two years later. Today thanks to Rushwaya and company the picture is different and the Warriors, who failed to qualify for the African Nations Cup twice since their last appearance in 2006, find themselves having to console their fans by winning the less-fashionable COSAFA title. Celebrating mediocrity is akin to taking the nation backwards to that forgettable pre-Nations Cup era of the 1980s and 1990s when the Warriors were regarded as the nearly men of African football, a time when the inability of ZIFA led people like Ben Koufie to believe that even a coach from the moon was unlikely to help matters.