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The green light for competitive sport to resume, and the reopening of gymnasiums, is an exceptionally welcome move as Zimbabwe starts walking step by step to a more normal life, but with very strict public health measures in place to make the risk of a new wave of Covid-19 negligible.

The health rules were clearly laid down by Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation Kirsty Coventry, who obviously went into bat for her constituency and whose Ministry officials have obviously been having detailed talks with those in the Ministry of Health and Child Care to work out standard operating procedures.

Among the first to restart are the top leagues of soccer, for men and women. Everyone involved in any game will have to be tested regularly for Covid-19 and the dressing rooms and other areas used by teams will have to be kept germ free. There are other procedures, but these are the main ones,

And spectators will be banned. Totally. This will present a lot of financial pressure on clubs, and while the Sports Ministry is pressing for financial help, to be controlled by the Sports and Recreation Commission, there is now an opportunity to move large chunks of top-flight Zimbabwean sport into the modern age.

In most developed countries television revenues dwarf gate receipts. And while the markets are not that large in Zimbabwe it is time we started treating sports television as a business, rather than as something we do when we feel like it.

Considering the mass popularity of soccer in Zimbabwe there is obviously an audience for soccer matches, and considering the numbers who already spend Saturday and Sunday afternoons glued to a television set to watch English soccer the openings for Zimbabwean PSL games is ready made. And once you have a large audience, advertisers become fascinated.

This is where the football authorities need to step in and negotiate the deal with ZBCTV, probably some sort of percentage going to the television company to cover their costs and give them a fair slice of the profits. 

At the same time, the football authorities need to hammer out how the revenue will be distributed.

It is all very well having a few hundred thousand people watching something like a Dynamos-Highlanders game, with advertisers ready to come in and buy the slots at the beginning, the half-time and the end, plus probably have their strip of advertising across the bottom or top of the screen during the game. But some clubs may not be able to attract large enough audiences to even cover costs.

Generally, the packages worked out in most sports leagues and associations is to divide the revenues between all the clubs, or to have some sort of arrangement whereby travel costs, referee fees and the like come out of the pool first.

A long, virtual, meeting can work out some of the procedures to create a fair system that everyone can live with.

With only one available channel, unless something can quickly be added, it will be difficult to screen all games, so once again some sort of pool of available revenue needs to be under central control. 

The policies and details need to be worked out and the time to start is now. Whatever revenue can be generated needs to be available as quickly as possible. And fans will want to see their teams play.

Clubs also need to firm up their sponsorship deals. Some are fortunate, having a single big sponsor. Others may have to spread themselves a bit. Again the objective is to cover costs, which includes basic pay for players.

As the opening spreads down the line, there will be additional pressures. Lower league teams will still face the testing costs and travel costs, and will not even have the modest shares of gate takings. So once again some sort of financing arrangements need to be worked out.

The other aspect of Minister Coventry’s announcement needs to be taken seriously. Everyone has to obey the health rules in spirit and to the letter. She has the pack of red cards for those who do not. 

SRC will be policing the system, and regulating the system, and no doubt the commission will be getting information from the police and other lockdown enforcement agencies.

The minister was crystal clear. If you cheat, even just a tiny bit, you are closed down. And so far there are no procedures in place to allow you back, the authorities will think about that when it happens, perhaps. So it is not like some breaches of the lockdown rules when you just pay a fine and carry on. 

You will quite possibly still pay the fine, but you will not carry on. There was cheating late last year when the Government allowed, after consulting health authorities, a phased resumption of sporting activity and some reckoned there were in any case grey areas. 

That cheating was one of the factors that led to the second wave of infection, and almost certainly made it worse. This time the choices are more stark: 100 percent adherence or nothing.

Sport is important for many people, those who participate, those who watch and those who follow. It is right that the Government has been trying to figure out ways of allowing it to resume without anyone being killed by that resumption. 

And we need to remember it is not just those who play sport, and those who follow sport, who could be at risk. The payers and followers live in communities and so everyone is at risk if the health measures do not work.

Young fit sports people might not be in high risk groups of complications from Covid-19, but they have grandmothers, they have families, they have neighbours. And they are involved in activity where one infected person can easily infect others. 

You cannot wear a mask on a soccer field, and social distancing is not really an option in a soccer game. So everyone has to be free of infection.

Clear and effective standing operating procedures are the way to slash the risks, and the rigid enforcement is needed. 

The basic sanction is a shut down. No one likes all these rules, or any of the other rules we all have to follow to minimise the risk of infection. The finances can be worked out, at least to a degree.