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IN February 2010, three months after the Warriors had hammered Zambia 3-1 to win the COSAFA Cup, Cuthbert Dube released his MANIFESTO appealing to ZIFA Councillors to make him the leader of Zimbabwe football.

The front page of the glossy 16-page booklet had a head-and-shoulder picture of a very strong Dube, wearing a dark stripped business suit and matching dotted tie, with his bright eyes firmly on the ball and he looked, every bit, the Messiah Zimbabwe football had been crying out for.

A Zimbabwean flag and a ball occupied the top right corner and a football field, with a miniature image of two men battling for possession, provided the anchor at the bottom with the caption — ‘TOWARDS A NEW ZIFA.’

On Page Two, Dube told us NINE things that made football very special saying the game can be “a vehicle for social, economic and political development, a cure to the hurt and grieving, contributes 15 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, can unlock the business value for Zimbabwe, unites and is the PEOPLE’S PASSION.”

Then, on Page Seven, he gave us his reflection of the state of football in Zimbabwe, back then.

• DEVELOPMENT — Our structures have not served football development since they are disjointed and under-resourced. Talent has gone to waste unnoticed on account of the aforementioned. We have no policy framework that robustly drives development initiatives

• SPONSORSHIP — Our game lacks corporate partners who have not hidden their lack of confidence in our game. Traditional partners of football, the world over, are conspicuous by their absence in our game.

• NATIONAL TEAMS — Our national teams have failed, since 2006, to qualify for CAF and World Cup competitions as a result of POOR PREPARATIONS, INCONSISTENT TECHNICAL SYSTEMS, POOR FUNDING AND HALF-HEARTED PERFORMANCES, AMONG OTHER REASONS. A TEAM THAT QUALIFIES FOR SUCH GRAND EVENTS DOES THE NATION PROUD IN TERMS OF BUSINESS, MARKETING AND NATION PROFILE-BUILDING.

• PARTNERSHIPS — Our game is short of strategic partners ranging from government, diplomatic missions, UN departments, sister football associations, business concerns, the list is endless. Football needs partners to service various cost centres of the game. Very little has been done in terms of courting the strategic partners.

• PLAYER CAREER PATHS — Our game, whose current FIFA ranking is 117, has not done our talented players any favour as prospects for employment in lucrative leagues have failed by the day. Our players have found refuge in the LITTLE leagues in the region and abroad where they have found themselves holed up there for years, failing to break through into BIGGER leagues. THE LOW RANKINGS ARE AN INDICATOR OF THE GAME’S LOW PROFILE.

• PLAYER WELFARE — Our game has no soft spot for the game’s most important resource, THE PLAYER. PLAYERS ARE THE DRAWCARD YET THEY LIVE IN ABJECT POVERTY AND MANY DIE AS PAUPERS. PLAYERS ARE USED AS LABOURERS IN A GAME THAT THEY HAVE CONTRIBUTED 90 PERCENT OF THEIR LIVES.

• LOCAL LEAGUE SPONSORSHIP — Our local league is crying for branding and this has seen our clubs floundering or folding up due to lack of financial incentives that would come with local league sponsorship. The leagues should get material and financial sponsorship so as to keep the clubs afloat. The leagues lack vibrant management and this issue must be addressed.

THE PROMISE THAT DUBE GAVE TO THE ELECTORATE

“Upon getting your mandate to lead the game of football, I will acquit myself to the best of my abilities AND FOOTBALL’S FACE SHOULD ASSUME A NEW LOOK. I shall devote all my energies towards the implementation of the turnaround strategy of the Association and herewith the areas that I, together with the Board and Assembly, shall work on;

• HEADQUARTERS — My Board will secure new premises away from 53 Livingstone Avenue, Harare, where a state-of-the-art House of ZIFA shall be built. The new premises should exude a new-look of the Association and should house all of the Association’s portfolios.

• NATIONAL TEAMS — ONCE UPON A TIME A REGIONAL POWERHOUSE, THE NATIONAL TEAM SHOULD RECLAIM THEIR STATUS OF OLDEN DAYS. MY BOARD, THROUGH PARTNERSHIPS WITH CORPORATE AND GOVERNMENT, SHALL ENSURE THAT STRONG NATIONAL TEAMS ARE PUT TOGETHER THROUGH A SOUND TECHNICAL SYSTEM THAT SHALL ONLY SEE THE BEST OF ZIMBABWE’S PLAYERS DONNING NATIONAL TEAM JERSEYS. A SPECIAL FUND, ADMINISTERED BY REPUTABLE MEN AND WOMEN FROM INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE, SHALL OVERSEE THE SPECIAL FUND. OUR TEAMS WOULD BE AFFORDED THE MUCH-NEEDED EXPOSURE REGIONALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY.

• SPONSORSHIP — A team shall be put together to mobilise sponsorship for the Association’s portfolios. The sponsorship will service development, general administration, marketing, NATIONAL TEAMS, infrastructural development and the regeneration of the Association.

• INVESTMENTS — My Board shall re-operationalise the ZIFA (Pvt) Ltd, turning it into an investment vehicle that shall be responsible for ZIFA’s movable and immovable assets and the investment drive. THE COMPANY SHALL BE REGISTERED ON THE STOCK EXCHANGE SO AS TO LEVERAGE ITS BUSINESS UNITS. My Board will work on having self-help units, namely farms and other investments.

• PLAYER WELFARE — Player welfare shall be the cornerstone of our administration. The Players Union shall be resourced through multilateral partnerships. Player members shall be our main focus area so as to arrest the skills drain to South Africa and other leagues. Insurance schemes shall be availed to our players, thus creating a safety net for them. Players will, forthwith, not be dumped by clubs when they get injured while on duty.

• DEVELOPMENT STRUCTURES — The dysfunctional structures shall be revived, starting from Area Zone Level up to the Premier League. The structures in question shall be resourced and we shall invest a lot in human capital development. Schools and tertiary leagues shall be resourced if our mainstream football is to be vibrant. We shall also revive our schools of excellence in the 10 provinces. The Board shall mobilise financial and human resources locally and beyond the borders to service development initiatives.

• DIASPORA PACKAGE — My Board shall exploit, to the fullest, the human, material and financial resources abounding in the Diaspora. My Board shall engage the Zimbabweans living in the Diaspora with a full package consisting of TALENT IDENTIFICATION SCHEMES, FOOTBALL TOURS BY CLUBS AND NATIONAL TEAMS, PLACEMENT OF VOLUNTEERS, MERCHANDISING, CAREER PATHS OF LOCAL PLAYERS, SPONSORSHIP AND INVESTMENT IN THE SPORT-RELATED VENTURES AND SPORT TOURISM.

• GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT — Our game needs maximum involvement of Government and, given my contacts at Government level, my Board shall re-engage Government with a package for Government involvement and facilitation. We shall renew Government’s confidence in our game and this shall form part of our turn-around strategy initiatives.

AND, WITH THIS SUMMARY, OUR DEAR LEADER CLOSED HIS MANIFESTO

Ø I have a burning desire to help rebrand our game

Ø I have the drive to develop our nation through football

Ø All the Area Zones, Districts, Provinces and the Premier Soccer league shall be reasonably resourced

Ø I have the zeal to turn around the fortunes of local football

Ø I HAVE THE CONTACTS, LOCALLY, AND INTERNATIONALLY, TO WORK WITH IN CHANGING THE FACE OF OUR GAME. I WILL BRING SPONSORSHOP TO ZIFA AND ALL ITS AFFILIATES

Ø I have the experience to lead football to greater heights

Ø I will not receive Board Fees. I will donate my sitting allowances to the National Team and the Mighty Warriors

Ø I have a traceable record as a turnaround strategist

Ø I am a visionary

Ø ZIFA WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN UNDER MY LEADERSHIP

Ø ZIFA WILL REGAIN ITS LOST PRIDE

Ø ZIMBABWE’S WORLD RANKING WILL BE AMONG THE FIRST FIFTY (50).

FIVE YEARS LATER, WHERE DO WE STAND, MR ZIFA PRESIDENT?

The game has certainly, not been re-branded, and the reality is that Zimbabwe football, today, both in profile and what we seeing on the pitch, is worse off than when the baton was handed to you in March 2010.

We have become the globe’s laughing stock and that picture of our national coach, Callisto Pasuwa, with that two-in-one blanket, boarding the Munorurama bus, for the road trip to Malawi, which went viral on social media sites, captured this stunning decline.

The Area Zones, Districts and Provinces have not been resourced and, in many areas, the game has virtually collapsed or is about to collapse, the fortunes of local football have nose-dived, in spectacular fashion under your leadership, and we are yet to see the contacts — locally and internationally — which you said were going to change the face of our game.

You are yet to bring even a cent, in sponsorship, to ZIFA, let’s not even waste time by talking about the affiliates, and if you have failed to do it in FIVE years, what guarantees do we have that you can do that in the next THREE years?

Instead of bringing the sponsorship, it’s what you promised boss, you have loaded ZIFA with a mountain of debt, some say you have pumped about $1 million of your money into the Association, and if that was the sponsorship you were talking about, then God help us.

Yes, ZIFA have never been the same again, under your leadership BUT for all the wrong reasons — the organisation is collapsing under an avalanche of debt, whatever pride it had has been battered with each passing day and, for the FIRST time, we had the junior national teams failing to travel to fulfil their assignments.

And, just in case you don’t know it, our world ranking is 119, and we have actually improved from last month when we were number 124, and for the best part of the last FIVE years, under your watch, we have been outside the top 100, swimming partners of the likes of Swaziland and Lesotho.

We now even celebrate when we knock out Swaziland, on the away goals rule, in the Olympic Games qualifiers.

We were the champions of COSAFA, when you took over, but now we are now not even good enough to qualify from the group stages of the tournament, our fate sealed by a 1-4 whipping at the hands of Namibia at the latest tournament.

Where we used to fail to qualify, at the final hurdle, for the Nations Cup, when you took over, we now can’t even smuggle ourselves out of a preliminary round, even when the opponents are Tanzania, and — just in case nobody told you this — you have just become the first ZIFA president, after the turn of the millennium, to oversee THREE FAILED NATIONS CUP qualifying campaigns.

Even when we were presented with an express route, of needing to beat just two teams, Burundi and Angola, and qualify for the 2013 Nations Cup finals, we still came short.

In the THREE Nations Cup tournaments and one World Cup tourney we have played under your supervision, the Warriors have only edged one team, Liberia, in their head-to-head aggregate and FAILED to do so against the other EIGHT teams — Cape Verde, Mali, Burundi, Angola, Tanzania, Egypt, Guinea and Mozambique. The national teams’ poor preparations, which you promised to address, haven’t been addressed and we are even in a worse position than we were just before the baton of leadership was passed to you, and our Warriors still suffer from the very things you said you were going to resolve, and here, I will use your own words — “INCONSISTENT TECHNICAL SYSTEMS, POOR FUNDING AND HALF-HEARTED PERFORMANCES.”

Our players are now even struggling to break into the so-called obscure leagues that you were mocking, five years ago, ZIFA House is still there but now resembles a ghost, we haven’t seen the Government involvement you promised, through your contacts, to get on board and there is no sponsorship for the Association and that’s an indictment for someone who said he had “contacts, locally and internationally to bring sponsorship to ZIFA and its affiliates.”

The chaos that stalked the Warriors camp this week shouldn’t be viewed in isolation because if we do that we would be making a huge mistake.

It should be viewed as part of a system that its leadership promised would work and which, in the last five years, has virtually collapsed while the same leaders just can’t acknowledge that, maybe, their best shot hasn’t been good enough and it’s time to pass the baton to others.

In South African football today, they are battling with a $10 million question — why did this happen, how did it happen, who made it happen, when it did happen, what was it when it happened, a massive bribe or just a donation to help the African Diaspora?

Here we should be battling with a $7 million question — how did the ZIFA debt become so big, in the past five years, why is it that everything that our football leader promised us never came to pass, why are our Warriors being given such a raw deal, why have we allowed things to get so bad, why are our leaders still hanging on to their positions amid this wreckage of failure, what are they getting out of the game that they can’t pass the baton to others, is this still our national game or it now belongs to someone else?

Of course, we can force a result in Malawi today, including a win, but it’s all about having players and a coach who can defy monumental odds, which keep being erected in their path by a leadership that has long abandoned them, which does not know what it means to prepare for such assignments, and they can find a way to leap those barriers.

Indeed, five years, is a long time.

As they say on the social media platforms, gore rino tichadzidza zvakawanda — magetsi anoenda, mvura inoenda asi ZIFA haiende.

To God Be The Glory!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

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