IT seemed like a joke but the Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) is serious about expanding the sub-standard Castle Lager Premier Soccer League to 20 teams and introducing a single National First Division, which will also have 20 teams.
Already, the Premier Soccer League (PSL) has more than what it can carry and with this expansion, the standards of the PSL will go down even further than they already are while the introduction of the National First Division is a disaster in itself.
What does Zifa think a 20-team league will offer when the existing 18-team assembly is struggling?
How does Zifa plan to run the National First Division league which was before rejected by the football family on financial grounds?
In fact, we would have expected Zifa to.be reducing the PSL to a more competitive and compact 16 or 14 team league rather than to add misery to an already boring and unattractive 18-team assembly.
We smell a rat somewhere because the way in which Zifa is rushing things is not normal and raises suspicions of undercurrent pushing own agendas.
Zifa have not told us why they are so desperate for this 20-team PSL or this 20-team National First Division except that they want it done now and starting from the 2026 season.
Is it because of the rumoured promised sponsorship for the Zifa Cup and for the Warriors if certain things were done to the benefit of the blesser who is an interested part in the team increases ?
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How honestly can Zifa — without a constitutional review — just wake up to tell the nation that they are proposing that with immediate effect PSL teams be increased to 20?
How honestly can Zifa — just from nowhere — wake up to tell us of the coming of the National First Division without looking at the merits and demerits of such a project?
We vividly remember that the proposal for a National First Division was rejected on the basis that the economic situation did not allow a team to travel — on many occasions - from Mutare or Kariba to Hwange, Beitbeidge, Gwanda, Zvishavane, Chiredzi and Bulawayo.
In fact, Zimbabwe had two First Divisions — the Southern Region — which stretched from KweKwe, covering Zvishavane, Masvingo, Bulawayo, Hwange and up to Beitbridge.
Then, we had the Northern Region, which ran from Kadoma, spreading to Kariba, via Harare up to Mutare.
Those two first divisions became too costly for clubs that the Zifa assembly had to cut the costs of the travel by dividing those two regions into two each.
We are waiting for Zifa to tell us from their research how many of the teams in the Central, Eastern, Northern and Southern Region have the financial capacity to be incorporated into the National First Division.
Some Zifa executives claim they were not consulted regarding the PSL expansion and this introduction of the National First Division but are they telling the truth ?
Or has Zifa president Nqobile Magwizi become power unto himself and is doing whatever he wants with Zimbabwean football?
If that is the case, the warning is that this is the same behaviour that sent Cuthbert Dube crashing out of Zifa and out of Zimbabwean football for good. Away from the madness. We take this opportunity to congratulate Scottland for winning the 2025 Castle Lager Premier Soccer League title.
However, Scottland should be reminded that they are still far away as Dynamos have 21 of those titles and a place in the final and semi-final of the CAF Champions League to talk of.
Only when they achieve half of what Dynamos have done, will we then stand up to notice them — So far, the one title is the beginning of a long journey.
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