Zifa president Philip Chiyangwa says his cash-strapped association does not have the money to appoint a substantive national team coach at the moment and will continue engaging FC Platinum coach Norman Mapeza on a caretaker basis.
BY DANIEL NHAKANISO
The debt-ridden football mother body has recently come under fire over its continued dithering on the appointment of a substantive coach, with less than two months left before the start of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign in June.
Zifa appointed Mapeza to take charge of the Warriors’ international friendly match against Zambia in Harare last month after parting ways with Kalisto Pasuwa in February.
While it appears Zifa have opted to engage Mapeza to take charge of the team ahead of the 2018 African Nations Championship (Chan) and 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifiers, they are yet to offer the coach a contract on a full-time basis.
In fact, Zifa are also yet to formally approach Mapeza’s employers, FC Platinum, who are reportedly reluctant to have their coach double as the Warriors coach on a permanent basis.
Mapeza, who ironically is still owed money by the cash-strapped football mother body, had chosen to overlook the issue of his outstanding dues in a bid to take the job on a permanent basis.
And Chiyangwa, who is also the Cosafa boss, told Standardsport yesterday that they were willing to continue engaging Mapeza but only on a part-time basis in a bid to avoid paying more money.
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“At the moment we have Norman Mapeza who is the acting coach, zvesubsustantive coach ndezvimwewo izvo [the issue of a substantive coach is another story],” Chiyangwa said.
“Norman is the person I appointed myself as acting coach and he can perform the role for a year or two, there’s nothing amiss about that. We won’t be rushed into putting someone under contract because it will have other implications.”
Apparently oblivious of the negative impact the failure to appoint a substantive coach will have on the Warriors, Chiyangwa — whose association faces a debt of over $7 million — boasted that Zifa had saved money by not rushing into appointing a substantive coach.
“Can you imagine a situation where we had appointed someone soon after parting ways with Pasuwa and he was on a $7 000 a month salary like his predecessor, how much would we have forked out by the time we play Liberia in June?
“Where would I get the money? So I believe we have saved something like $40 000 and that’s why we were able to make that donation to women’s football. It’s called cost benefit analysis,” he said.
“Last year we had to give Pasuwa a contract because we had the pressure of the impending Afcon tournament. This year we don’t have any pressure like last year or the year before. You need to understand these things so that you can also appreciate that you can’t just keep a coach when you have only two assessments per year.”
Chiyangwa’s latest comments come after his claims that over 600 coaches from all over the world had shown interest in taking over as the Warriors’ head gaffer.
Belgian coach, Ronny Van Geneugden, who was reportedly among the list of several European coaches that had applied for the post, has since been appointed as the new coach of the Malawi national team.
Zimbabwe’s quest to make a quick return to the Afcon finals looks hard after the Warriors were in January drawn in a tough qualification draw for the 2019 tournament to be played in Cameroon
The Warriors were drawn in Group G alongside Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazzaville and Liberia in a qualification campaign which gets underway with a home tie against the latter during the first week of June.
Only group winners and the best three runners-up will qualify for the tournament, with hosts Cameroon.
Zimbabwe will be hoping to make it to their second Afcon finals in a row, following their qualification for the Gabon finals, where Pasuwa’s men failed to go beyond the group stages of the competition.
The Warriors had qualified by topping their group, which had Guinea, Malawi and Swaziland, but their campaign for the 2019 finals is already facing hurdles before it has even begun due to the uncertainty surrounding the appointment of a substantive coach.
