The football family last week celebrated the departure of Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) president Cuthbert Dube as if Zimbabwe had qualified for the World Cup.
Inside Sport by Michael Kariati
Everywhere — in the streets, in bars, and in homes — the topic was the departure of the man who had been at the helm of Zimbabwean football since 2010.
Surely, Dube is gone, but forgotten is the fact that Dube was not the root of the Zimbabwean football problems, but the people who elected him in the first place — the Zifa Council and their love for money must share the blame!
Yes, people might be happy that Dube is gone but the truth is that Zimbabwean football problems will remain for as long as there is the current Zifa Council.
Misheck Chidzambwa, who won the 1985 East and Central Challenge Cup as captain of the Warriors and later the Cosafa Castle Cup as coach in 2002 got straight to the point when he analysed the state of local football.
“We might rush to say the Zifa board has killed our football. The game has been destroyed at Zifa Council level. That is where we should start from. This syndrome of ‘give me money to vote for you’ has gone [on] for too long,” said Chidzambwa.
December 5 has been set as the day elections will be held to choose Dube’s successor and to elect a board. But before we do that, there is need to cleanse the Zifa Council by having new and fresh councillors to do the voting.
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Allegations of vote-buying have been made against the Zifa Council since 1993 when Leo Mugabe was elected chairman of Zifa.
Since then, every election has been dogged by these allegations. This is because the long-serving Zifa councillors have been sowing this seed of “cash for my vote syndrome” to new members.
As a result, Zimbabwe has fallen into the habit of electing rich people into top football positions, while competent contenders capable of injecting new life into Zifa have been systematically sidelined and consigned to the dustbin of football for failing to line the pockets of councillors.
Dube has always denied allegations that he paid money to have the councillors vote for him both in 2010 and 2014. He, however, has not denied word doing rounds that some of the councillors turned against him when he stopped paying them when they pestered him with their never-ending family problems.
Word is also spreading that before Dube had even been shown the exit, some Zifa councillors were already knocking on the doors of potential Zifa presidential candidates pledging their votes in exchange for financial favours.
That is why, in order to get rid of this vote-buying, there is need to dissolve the entire Zifa Council and start afresh before a blundering Zifa president buys his way up the ladder.
We also need to consider other bodies like the Zimbabwe Soccer Coaches Association and the Zimbabwe Junior Football Association, who were removed from the Zifa Council as a result of a purge by the Dube regime.
There should be no hurry in replacing Dube; what is required is doing the right thing. First, we must make sure that we have the right people and the right football associations within the Zifa Council — even if it means holding elections for the Zifa presidency next year.
Let them play on the same day When I received this weekend’s fixtures, one thing that caught my attention was that both leaders — Chicken Inn, and second-placed FC Platinum — were playing their games on Saturday, while Dynamos were scheduled to play on Sunday.
More important is the fact that there are no other games taking place in Harare on Saturday. This means that Dynamos’ home ground of Rufaro Stadium is not being used on that day, and so, Dembare might as well play on the same day as their two strongest league title challengers.
These three teams are in the running for the league championship and are separated by a small margin in terms of points. Why give Dembare the advantage of playing when they already know the results of their strongest challengers? At this time of the season, we would expect fair play from the Premier Soccer League and it is such decisions that send tongues wagging.
To avoid the temptation of match-fixing, let all the title chasing teams play on the same day, and at the same time.
Let us not get too excited Excitement is running high following Zimbabwe Mighty Warriors’ narrow 2-1 loss to Cameroon in the first leg of the final qualifying round of the 2016 Olympic Games.
The joy and celebration displayed at the Harare International airport gave the impression the Mighty Warriors had already qualified, when there is still one more game to play, which is the most important.
The truth is that we are not yet at the Olympic Games and only after the second game against the Lionesses at Rufaro Stadium next weekend can we celebrate.
We have been in this situation before and the results were a disaster. We needed a 1-0 win over the Black Queens of Ghana after having lost 2-1 in Accra in an Africa Games qualifier, but were held to a two-all draw at Rufaro Stadium.
We did not qualify for the Africa Games, yet we had been gloating about our performance in Accra. So as things stand right now, Zimbabwe are still at home, and not on their way to Rio de Janeiro.
The Mighty Warriors have a strong chance of qualifying for Rio, but only if they are not fed on dried kapenta, and have more time in camp.
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