The Warriors are lucky. But when you are under ZIFA management, you are NEVER lucky. The association is notorious for micromanaging the national team and interfering in footballing matters beyond their mandate.
So, for those who are already celebrating our fair chance of making it to South Africa, I foresee disappointment. The ZIFA board’s interference in footballing affairs, by selecting or dropping players, is damaging the national side’s ability to perform.
As we bid to make our third ever appearance at the Afcon, so pertinent is the need to first clear an internal hurdle that is ZIFA, which always lurks in the darkest corner – charged with the mandate to make us qualify, but making sure that we don’t.
The script has already been written, the trailer seen, and it looks scary. Three personalities have so far taken up roles – Tapiwa Mashingaidze, Cuthbert Dube and Knowledge Musona.
Dube plays the overbearing headmaster who pokes trouble at students and then draws out the whip in the face of angry reactions.
Remember the fiasco of February 1, 2012? That is the day when the association chairman overrode then coach, Norman Mapeza, to announce that Thomas Sweswe, Esrom Nyandoro and Nysasha Mushekwi would be dropped from the team because they had played below standard when the Warriors lost 1-2 away to Cape Verde in an Afcon 2012 qualifier in Harare.
“As the ZIFA president I can categorically say that these three players, I don’t want to see them for the Burundi match,” he said on the day. Underline the “I” word. Is this man working for the nation?
“For a player of Method’s calibre to perform like that, it raises a lot of questions. Method Mwanjali, Thomas Sweswe and Nyasha Mushekwi’s performance in the last Africa Cup of Nations match against Cape Verde was way, way below par…….”
Yes, we thought the team should be allowed to win and lose as a unit. But the board’s meddling unfairly singles out individuals, when that is the coach’s job.
His right-hand-man, Mashingaidze, would not be outdone either, recently triggering a storm and relying on Dube to aid him. When the Warriors lost to 0-1 to visiting Guinea in a recent World Cup qualifier, the ZIFA CEO accused Musona and Karuru of having thrown that game just because they had visited the offices of former CEO, Henrietta Rushwaya.
How much Rushwaya could have paid Musona, who earned $100,000 a month at TSG Hoffenheim last year, remains a mystery.
The circus rolled to its climax when the 22-year-old Musona declares that he would not render any more services to his country until the association apologised for the allegations against him.
Daggers drawn! But he forgets that in Dube, he is dealing with an elder-businessman who brooks no nonsense from employees.
Scene four sees Dube tell the nation, on national television, that Zimbabwe does not need Musona – the same man whose solitary strike set the Warriors up with the Palancas Negras. As Angola, 14 places above them in world rankings, looms, Zimbabwe remains a rudderless ship – no substantive coach, dosens of players suspended and the remaining ones in low morale.
Yet this was Zimbabwe’s fairest chance against a side that failed to make it past the first round of the last continental showpiece. Angola has also posted unconvincing results in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers – drawing all two of its games and lying third in Group J, behind Senegal and Uganda.
Post published in: Football