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Phillip Zulu in LEEDS, England

THE decision by the Sports Commission to suspend the ZIFA board was long overdue and comes as a huge relief to most football fans.

The suspended ZIFA board is a sad reflection of how not to lead football at the highest national level.

As we ponder on the destruction of our beloved sport, urgent calls for a sober approach and patience, in sifting through this terrible mess, have dominated every football discussion.

As a renowned critic of these Mafia-style cartels, which have been devouring the life streams of the game, without any shame whatsoever, I have been surprised by the arrogance from No. 53 Livingstone Avenue.

It was shocking to witness the cartels, in cohorts with the ZIFA board, charter a plane to Egypt during the last AFCON finals.

And, as expected, all sorts of pandemonium broke loose as extreme greed took centre stage.

Some even picked their pastors, and all the kith and kin, to be flown as the ‘’special’’ guests of our football leaders.

That dent became the huge blow that callously brought down the pillars of the game, with stunning pace, and triggered the downfall of our game.

Blunder after blunder ignited raging fires, which eventually attracted the attention of the Sports Commission who, at first, were reluctant to intervene.

There were concerns FIFA’s immense powers will always be used to sabotage an intervention meant to help the game.

We even saw Joseph Mamutse (the suspended ZIFA chief executive) daring the authorities to stay away from their ‘’territory’’.

This board had become the untouchables, in their corridors of power, as they flouted the rights of fellow colleagues, such as Gift Banda.

Without anyone to provide them with counsel, and caution, they disintegrated into anarchy.

One wonders how such thuggery, and Mafia-style gangsterism, invaded and captured our beloved sport.

The suspension brings forth various scenarios of objectivity, stability and progress.

The expected interim leadership should hit the road running to help revive the interest of the majority of fans.

The demise of our football lies largely on the lack of basic objective setting in establishing the right mix of ideals that guide our pursuit and actions towards achieving intended goals.

Lack of stability has been the Achilles’ heel of Felton Kamambo’s mismanagement traits leading to the flight of the corporate world as sponsors kept their distance away from the soiled image of ZIFA.

Isn’t it a shame that our football leaders cannot even point to one sponsor, who came on board, during their time in charge?

What does that tell us when SAFA and FAZ have a number of sponsors backing them?

The new leadership should present their credentials in terms of their pedigree in good administrative skills so that opportunistic vultures, which prey on the game, are weeded out from the onset.

Stability comes with a price and every effort should be made to engage all voices of reason out there to converge ideas, and experiences, which can add value to the broader national vision of how modern football and sport should be managed.

The fear of the unknown is slowly gripping our minds while FIFA scrutinise the circumstances which led to the overdue suspension of the Kamambo-led board.

This could be our rebirth moment.

Formulating long-term strategies is the key in all areas of administration.

This should include the development of junior and coach education programmes, reorganisation of the local league structures, procedures of appointing national team personnel and the selection of the players for national duties in all formations of Under-15 to 23, right up to the senior squad.

I hope and pray that one day, all players being selected to the national teams shall be judged by their abilities.

And, not by the influence from these cartels, who have wrecked our game.

National team caps have been dished out like confetti by opportunistic vultures religiously encircling all our national teams.

The performance on the pitch, for the last 10 years, have been too scary and very poor.

Somehow, this rot has been ignored by Kamambo and his board.

The sad reality is that poor results were being celebrated at every turn.

Failure became the norm and was celebrated as we failed to win a single game in the recent World Cup campaign.

That is unacceptable and such carelessness should never be allowed to creep back into our nationsl game.

For goodness sake, we are now ranked 121 in the world and still some people want to cling on to their posts at ZIFA.

If the Egyptian Football Federation were fored to resign, by their Government, when the Pharaohs lost in the quarter-finals of the 2019 AFCON finals, what about ZIFA, given everything that the Warriors have endured?

Surely, we finished last at that tournament, we have finished last at the CHAN finals and last at the COSAFA Cup.

We also finished last in our World Cup qualifiying group. So, they want to lead us at the 2021 AFCON finals so that we finish last again?