By Sports Reporter Aspiring Zifa Presidential candidate Nigel Munyati is confident of beating incumbent boss Cuthbert Dube, Leslie Gwindi and former Zifa boss Trevor Carelse-Juul.
Standardsport caught up with Munyati and he had this to say: “I have for a long time worked with footballers and I know exactly what they want.”
Munyati said if given a chance to steer the ship, he would seek to create a new approach to football administration which would revolutionarise football in Zimbabwe.
“What has been lacking in Zimbabwean football is proper planning. After planning, you would then want to see how you are going to cascade the programmes down to grassroots levels. We would then come up with a programme to review our plan at certain intervals,” he said.
Asked about the feeling from football lovers in Zimbabwe that he has been part of the current Zifa board but has failed to bring change to the system, Munyati said; “Many people have been saying that but you have to be in it to understand it. After just six months in office, the board had started to crack with two factions emerging. This made life difficult for some of us who were not part of either faction. As board member marketing, I did my strategic plan for marketing and presented it to the president and his vice, but nothing was done.”
Munyati bemoaned Zifa leadership for the way they handled the Warriors Puma deal which he had brokered.
“They left me to do all the dirty work. We even invited Fifa officials to look at our project and they told us to go for it. It was at the last minute when we needed the two’s signatures that the deal collapsed.”
Zifa missed a deal that was going to see them pocketing close to US$500 000 per year in replica sales.
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Asked how he was going to address the financial problems bedevilling Zifa, Munyati said it is was always profitable to go for the “lowest hanging fruit”.
“As soon as I get into office, I would start by sorting out the Warriors kit deal which I know very well will bring some revenue. We would create diaspora chapters to try and widen our supports base. We should also take advantage of the Warriors performance at Chan and sell the products in South Africa and the United Kingdom for now.”
The marketing guru also cited the need to engage creditors in a proper manner.
“All our creditors understand us. They need to be treated as human beings. The other debt that belongs to Kentaro, we will then talk to the government to take over as it was a Tourism ministry event that was not ours.”
One thing that Munyati spoke at length about was players transfer fees, Zifa levies as well as stadium rentals.
Munyati grew up in Highfield before he started a footballing career as a junior until he left for the US for studies. Upon returning home, he played for Black Aces as a left attacking winger before administering the club including other clubs such as Dairiboard and Rio Tinto which later merged. His tenure at Aces as chairman saw the team winning the BP Cup. They then agreed with MacDuvillard to start a youth academy which has churned out some of the best players in that land.
