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THE last time they gathered for their feast, exactly four months ago, they gave Cuthbert Dube another four-year mandate as Zifa president, rejected a second bid by Leslie Gwindi and said NO to Trevor Carelse-Juul’s comeback attempt. Yesterday, for the first time since delivering the decisive vote that consolidated Dube’s hold on Zimbabwe football, the Zifa councillors met in Harare for their assembly indaba.

And, given the way things have been going in our football, don’t be surprised if a motion was moved yesterday for the councillors to give a standing ovation to Dube and Jonathan Mashingaidze for watching the World Cup final in Brazil.

Or if a motion was moved for the councillors to give a standing ovation to Temba Mliswa, the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Sport, for accepting to be a guest of the association, on the flight to Rio, to watch the World Cup final.

It certainly wouldn’t have been out of order if a motion was also moved for the councillors to give a standing ovation to Andrew Langa, the Sports Minister, for his unwavering support for the Zifa board, and for his seal of approval for everything that happened at the last assembly in March.

Or if a motion was moved for the councillors to give a standing ovation to the so-called Friends of the Warriors for being all-weather allies of the Zifa board, in general, and Dube, in particular, and the fact that they were created and are funded by the same association is entirely irrelevant.

Zifa badly need corporate partners right now and, in an environment where the PSL have added two new knockout competitions onto their calendar and are now negotiating with another sponsor, TM Supermarkets, in what could be the start of a big relationship, the association has to look into the mirror and ask itself tough questions why no one is coming to partner them.

The excuse the association has been singing, in the past four years, that the domestic football landscape is toxic, and sponsors have been telling them that they need to first clean the game for them to come on board, has since lost its appeal, let alone its credibility, as all lies will eventually do, because those flocking into the PSL corner are proving that it’s all a morass of nonsense.

There is need for a huge mind shift from our football leaders so that they dump the militancy that has seen them spending years in a fruitless mission trying to outlaw some people from this game, at the expense of things that matter like development, what my Shona teacher would call “kupedzera tsvimbo kumakunguwo idzo hanga dzichauya”.

But, maybe, it’s not all doom and gloom.
There were some things, which Dube said on Thursday, which usher in a breeze of hope.
“WE NEED TO CRAFT A FOUR-YEAR ROADMAP WHICH THIS BOARD SHOULD WALK WITH THE SUPPORT OF AFFILIATE ORGANS,” Zifa boss, Dube, said on Thursday.

“WE SHOULD SET THE TONE FOR THE GROWTH OF FOOTBALL, BEGINNING THIS WEEKEND, SINCE WE WILL SPEND SATURDAY AND SUNDAY INTERROGATING ISSUES AROUND OUR FOOTBALL LANDSCAPE.
“WE NEED TO MANAGE OUR GAME STRATEGICALLY AND IT TAKES THE BOARD, THE ASSEMBLY, THE SECRETARIAT AND STAKEHOLDERS TO MAKE OUR GAME EMERGE FROM STAGNATION.
WE STAND TO BE JUDGED HARSHLY BY THE GENERATIONS TO COME IF WE DON’T APPLY OURSELVES FULLY TO TURNING AROUND THE FORTUNES OF OUR GAME.”

Now, Mr Zifa president, that’s what your constituency expect to hear from you because, to them, all that matters is seeing their beloved game making progress, seeing the Young Warriors back in the African Under-17 and Under-20 championships, even though they have to wait until the beginning of 2016 for that.
Incredibly, even war-torn Somalia, who only conducted their first referees’ course in 25 years, in April this year, and who in October last year held their first development course since 1986, entered their Under-20 national team for the 2015 African Under-20 Youth Cup.

All that your constituency is crying for is to see an investment being poured into the structures that identify and nurture our next football stars and, I can tell you Mr Zifa president, many of them were charmed to see two of your board members, John Phiri and Miriam Sibanda, gracing the Copa Coca-Cola schools national football finals at Gwanzura last weekend.

All that they want to see is you providing leadership, in terms of finding the next generation of Ali Babas, coaches dedicated to just working with fresh football talent, far away from the limelight of the television cameras and far away from the newspaper photographers, the people who can help us – just like what Ali Baba did – unearth the next Peter Ndlovu, the next Benjamin Nkonjera, the next Kennedy Nagoli.

All they are asking for Mr Zifa president is to see you taking charge of the system, and not this scenario where your chief executive appears to be the man in charge, and leading a board that will dedicate the bulk of its efforts to development of the game and not fighting phoney wars that it might never win even if it keeps fighting for the next 100 years.

When they say they hope to see you at the National Sports Stadium, it’s because that presents their best chance to talk to you, to tell you where they feel improvements can be done, where they feel the direction has been lost, where they feel your leadership need to be exerted.

Interestingly, a lot of them still believe in you but, at the same time, feel that you have been imprisoned by a group of people with evil motives, with a DNA that makes them sick if they don’t fight this and that fellow, with genes that make them ill if they try to do something developmental, and all that the fans are asking for is your freedom from a bondage where only a few — the majority with toxic agendas — are allowed access.

You, and only you Mr Zifa president, can make things change for the better.

FOOTBALL’s VERSION OF BOKO HARAM
The last time the assembly met, in March this year, domestic football was walking with a spring in its step, a fresh breeze blown by that good run by the Warriors at CHAN, had just swept across the landscape, and there was growing consensus that this was the dawn of a new era.
But four months is a long time in football.

Yesterday, the councillors met against the grim background of a 2015 Nations Cup campaign that ended at the first hurdle, in the unfamiliar territory of the preliminary rounds, while the Mighty Warriors, for the first time in a generation, were knocked out by Zambia just when they seemingly represented an oasis of hope in what has been an ocean of hopelessness.

This indaba came just a week after Mozambique went to Tanzania and forced a 2-2 draw, thrusting themselves in a strong position to qualify for the group stages of the 2015 Nations Cup qualifiers, when Lesotho beat Kenya at home, when Botswana won at home and when Malawi returned home with hope of overturning a 0-1 first leg deficit.

It’s very likely, looking at the sets of results from last weekend, that come next September, when the 2015 Nations Cup group stage qualifiers start, if we look east (Mozambique), west (Botswana), south (South Africa), north (Zambia) and northeast (Malawi) we will see countries featuring in the football battles for a place in Morocco next month.

We are likely to be the only ones missing from that festival of football.
My hope is that the Zifa councillors, if they really have football at heart, will get to appreciate that it can’t be business as usual, as was the case in the past four years, when all that mattered, for this board, was to try and silence this and that chap, suspend this and that fellow and ban this and that guy.

An organisation that spends four years and commits more than a million dollars, just trying to eliminate scores of individuals from the landscape, in a plot without an ending, but only succeeds in just freezing the careers of just TWO players, without even the blessings of Fifa, should by now be questioning itself, assuming it still has its conscience in the right place, about its mission.

The days of Zifa leaders intimidating people, on the basis of wild allegations that they are enemies of football because at some point in the past they were part of a match-fixing syndicate, are long gone and I am one of those who refused to be bullied by a spineless and heartless organisation that is as close to satanic as a football governing body can ever get.

When the same Zifa was forced by Fifa to open a window, for those who felt that their rights had been trampled upon and could lodge an appeal to clear their names, I was one of the people who filed that appeal, at a cost of US$6 000 each, even though there were questions about the football association’s jurisdiction over journalists.

That was way back in November 2012, almost two years ago now, and I was given a receipt, to confirm the payment, and a date was set for a hearing where, in the company of my lawyer Oscar Gasva of Chirimuuta and Associates, we presented ourselves before an appeals panel comprising Advocate Silas Chekera, Advocate Thabani Mpofu and veteran football administrator Chris Mbanga.

We were told, in the shortest possible period, which my lawyer believed would be anything between one to two weeks, we would be advised of the fate of our appeal, which we were hopeful would not only bring closure to this saga, as far as we were concerned, but help us in taking the first steps of cleaning an image that had been battered by Zifa’s fake sanctions.

Two years since that appeal was filed, two years since we paid US$6 000 each, paid a lot more in fees to the lawyers, all in the name of trying to bring closure to this issue and clear our names, using the channels provided by the same Zifa that had pronounced the sanctions, NOTHING has come from an association that is not only heartless but clearly satanic.

Of course, they used the money that we paid into their empty coffers, maybe it was used either to pay their employees or, maybe, to fund that trip, full of drama, to Mozambique by the Friends of the Warriors, no-one will ever know, but the bottom line is that it was used.

Seriously, how can you have an appeal process that takes about two years to have a verdict delivered unless, as some rightly assume now, the judgment might not have been in favour of the association and they have, therefore, decided making it public will be a humiliation to them?

Thomas Sweswe paid his US$6 000 appeal feel, to a system that promised him that it would deliver justice, he flew to and from South Africa on a number of occasions, his old club Bidvest Wits engaged the biggest legal firm on the continent to defend him, but two years after he tendered his appeal, the verdict hasn’t been delivered.

He has since left Bidvest Wits and recently suggested, in an interview with the Daily News, that this never-ending drama, coupled with his bad run with injuries, might all have played a part in his divorce with his club.

In the very unlikely event that the verdict is going to be delivered, let’s say some time just after the World Cup that we intend to host in 2032, wouldn’t Sweswe, assuming he remains alive by then, be eligible to file for damages not only to his reputation but for the opportunities he lost because of all this?

I’m certainly not a lawyer, let alone an advocate, but my father sent me to school long enough to know that, in football just like in life, there is a point when the apparent delay in the delivery of justice transforms itself into the denial of justice and everything that this nobility is supposed to represent.

In the meantime, even though Mashingaidze and his employers have long forgotten how they blew away those US$6 000 appeal fees, even though they have been sitting on judgments for a process that started two years ago, even though Fifa refused to endorse the sanctions they imposed on those who didn’t even choose to appeal, the good chief executive of Zifa has the temerity to keep describing Sweswe as an enemy of football.

He has the temerity to keep using, any opportunity he gets, to tell the country that this and that fellow is banned even when the process that his organisation came up with, to hear the appeals of this and that fellow, has not delivered the verdicts of the case two years down the line.

Come on guys, are we wrong then, given this grim scenario, to conclude that Zifa has been converted by Mashingaidze into a militant group, with all the hallmarks of a football version of Boko Haram, all that matters is their interests, no matter how evil they are, no matter how satanic?

A LETTER FROM REMINGTON RAY JAMBO
I liked your piece in today’s (last week’s Saturday Herald) on commitment to grassroots development of our soccer in Zimbabwe. I agree with you we don’t need millions of dollars.
What we need is the commitment and love of the game from people entrusted to run this sport.
I grew up in Mbare and my generation produced some of the greatest players to grace the soccer fields in our beloved country.
Through the township Boys Clubs young talent was nurtured. We had inter-township tournaments for age groups from Under-9, 11, 14, 16 and 18 years. These tournaments were run by the City Council.
There was one truck-turned-bus to ferry participants from Harare (now Mbare) Mufakose and Mabvuku. Unfortunately, Highfield was run by a town management board and did not participate in these tournaments.
These fixtures produced the likes of Eddie “Madhobha” Katsvere,Wisdom Mutemajiri, Ernest Mutano from Mai Musodzi Boys Club, Kumbi “Rabs” Mutimba, William Chikauro, Victor Jenitala, Raphael Beira, Charles Mabika, Stanford “Stix” Mtizwa, Jimmy Pondayi, Dixon Ngwenya from Stodart Boys Club.
My brother Danny Jambo, Tendai Ndemera, Ernest Katanda Andrew and Robson Ngosi from Chinembiri Boys Club and from Mufakose we had Archieford Chimutanda and from Mabvuku we had Clever Muzuva, Brenna Msiska, among others.

In Highfield, the police camp produced David Mandigora, Nobbie (cannot remember his surname), Nigel Munyati, David “Makanya” Kawondera and his brother Creto. These players from humble beginnings went on to hit the soccer headlines. The amateur football, under Sadfa, produced the great George Shaya ,Shaw Handriade, Lucky Rufani and David George.

We had teams like Zambia Malawi Stars, Mhondoro, Mutambara, Fort Victoria, Zimunya, Mozambique, Civil Service and Red Lion. Companies came with their teams like Twine and Cordage.

The point is that these structures were low-budget and funded by the players but still produced the great Fred Mukwesha and Booker Muchenu, Isdore Sagwete and others.

I don’t remember these structures having beautiful offices anywhere. Maybe times have changed. Rest in Peace or, is it Return if Possible, to all the great players I mentioned if they have passed on?

THE PROPOSED TM CHALLENGE CUP
I found it a bit strange to read one of the newspapers quoting a leader of the PSL saying that the league might not sanction the proposed TM Challenge Cup between Dynamos and Highlanders because of a tight programme and they have long outlawed two-team tournaments.

In this tough environment, where every dollar might be the difference between one of these clubs living to fight another day or collapsing, we aren’t the kind of league who can tell people, who come with their money for a trial run in what could prove a long-term and fruitful relationship, to go and hang.

Today, Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates will play in the Black Label Challenge and these are the same two teams that used to play in the Vodacom Challenge, it’s because of their profile, they created it over a long period of time and it reaps certain rewards, and whether we like it or not is irrelevant.

Our PSL leaders have to be careful, in terms of how much they can push some clubs, because one fine day, these same clubs will flex their muscles and, like Manchester United at the turn of the millennium, opt not to play in the FA Cup.
Well, in our case, that could be chaotic.

Like Cuthbert Dube rightly said on Thursday, “we stand to be judged harshly by the generations to come if we don’t apply ourselves fully to turning around the fortunes of our game”.

To God Be The Glory!
Come on United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chicharitoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
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