The ManicaPost
ESTEEMED followers of the game of football, thank you for finding time for interaction. For puffed-up Zifa president, Phillip Chiyangwa, running the affairs at Number 53, Livingstone Avenue since assuming office last December has become an issue of picking up speed in administering the national game.But perhaps a truism that probably does not exist in his handbook is that progress has little to do with speed, but much to do with direction. And inevitably, the more he gathers that speed the more he loses the plot in successfully dealing with the task at hand; which matter, at the very least, requires a sharply perspicacious sense in dealing with.
Contrary to the warped persuasion and ill-perceived conviction Chiyangwa harbours that he has so far been a success story to Zimbabwean football, he has to pull his weight if he is ever to get things absolutely right.
Dear Reader, forget the populist reinstatement of Kallisto Pasuwa as Warriors coach after he had been fired by Chiyangwa’s deputy, Omega Sibanda, all happening in the space of a week, if you want to muse over the controversial sacking of former PSL chairman Twine Phiri! If you want a hard, long laugh, Dear Reader, then just call to mind how our football leadership was left with egg on their face after a magistrate’s court cleared Henrietta Rushwaya, Edzai Kasinauyo and Nation Dube of match-fixing charges, allegations the association tried to crucify the trio on without any tangible evidence but insubstantial information from a self-confessed match-fixer-turned-whistleblower!
As a way of flexing his muscle we all know of the controversy that shrouded the futile attempt by Big Phil to dissolve Zifa and shortchange its creditors in the process and the subsequent stillbirth suffered by Nafaz and the boomerang effect it had. Also a trigger-happy lot, a series of absurd suspensions ostensibly targeting those who do not toe the line he draws has claimed the scalp of another PSL boss, Peter Dube; with suspicion rife that Chiyangwa is bent on smuggling Dynamos president, Kenny Mubaiwa into the structures – never mind that the Snoop Doggy look-alike has bitten the dust on the two successive occasions he has ran for that office.
The relegation-promotion tiff, a sticky situation Chiyangwa himself played midwifery to, still looms large with its lingering threat of scaring sponsors away as does the high-sounding nothing so-called High Performance Committee even as Fifa development officer for Southern Africa and veteran administrator Ashford Mamelodi has warned of the dangers of such a set-up.
To circumvent the promotion-relegation question, the Zifa boss is now proposing the formation of a single national First Division without owning up that all this confusion has come about with the indecisive manner PSL and the association have thus far dealt with issue.
For all the fine effort he has put into his job, Pasuwa, who is understood to have not been paid for months on end, still has his salary saga raging on; while the Warriors, for their feat of qualifying for 2017 Afcon, are likely to be send into battle in Gabon ill-prepared owing to near-nonexistent preparations.
A depreciatingly desolate state of affairs defines the women football league, without any meaningful structures to acknowledge the women’s game and prop up its existence; even as the Mighty Warriors had done the nation proud by qualifying for two major tournaments this year. With this type of approach to key competitions, we only get to tread the familiar path of getting knocked out at the first hurdle; the latest setback of which is the Young Warriors’ early elimination from the ongoing Cosafa Under-20 Championship.
Now, Gamechanger is not nit-picking in any way, but is just merely a soothsayer seeking enlightenment and understanding of the football cosmos around us because a lot has gone on under Chiyangwa’s watch that we cannot ignore.
Most fans had expected that after assuming power and control in the corridors of 53 Livingstone Avenue, Captain Fiasco would tirelessly work on transforming Zifa into a self-sustaining entity and wean itself from the benevolence of benefactor Wicknell Chivayo.
It would appear Chiyangwa has had a propensity of changing things just for the sake of it, but the question should be what value those changes would add to the sum total of the whole. As followers of football, we deserve better in the administration of our game and are demanding it.
After all has been said and done, is Zifa president, Phillip Chiyangwa in the business to develop and see our game grow or he is just in business?
Our hope is that he does not turn Zimbabwean football into a fiasco as he his moniker suggests!
It’s Game On, Play On!
Feedback:
It doesn’t need a rocket scientist to convince the Warriors coaches that Petros Mhari is the best goalkeeper right now and deserves a call-up to the national team. What should he do to convince Pasuwa and company? – Ticha Bee, Bonda Mission.
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