The Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) have stepped up their demands to have all licenced football clubs run professionally, in order to meet the world standardisation demands.
By Our Staff
According to Zifa communications officer, Xolani Gwesela, the demands that were set by the world football governing body Fifa, have to cascade to the regional body CAF, as well as national associations.
The set standards require all registered clubs to be able to make available audited financial statements at the end of each soccer season, have offices which will then be manned by qualified personnel, have a proper club executive committee, appoint a chief executive officer of the club, as well as a sound junior policy.
“Clubs have not been taking this seriously, but Zifa has been in contact with Premier Soccer League to make sure that all these requirements are met. Our clubs are far from reaching his standardisation stage but, as this is a directive from Fifa, we just have to comply,” said Gwesela.
Contacted for comment, PSL chief executive officer Kenny Ndebele acknowledged the development and added that they have been working hand in glove with Zifa to make his project a success.
“The move was designed to promote professionalism in clubs. We could have started this five years ago as PSL, but things have been hard for the past years. This project should have been completed in the 2012 soccer season,” Ndebele said.
He added; “This was then debated at our Annual General Meeting in March and most of the clubs saw it as a noble idea. We will be visiting clubs very soon to see what they have put in place, as far as meeting the standardisation requirements is concerned.”
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Ndebele added that a number of licenced clubs now have their own offices, but what has been the biggest undoing factor is youth development.
“Most of our clubs have no sound junior policies. This is dangerous in football. If you look closely on the requirements, they help whoever thinks of coming up with a football club to make it a long-term project. Just look at what happened to a number of clubs that were relegated, in most cases, even from the premiership. We no longer have Kiglon, Shooting Stars, Douglas Warriors, Sundowns, Eagles, FC Victoria just to mention a few, why? This is the exact situation that Fifa is trying to run away from, once a team gets relegated that will be the end of it. There must be life in lower leagues after being relegated,” concluded Ndebele.
