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Petros Kausiyo Deputy Sports Editor
AFTER years of controlling the game from the centre of the field, former FIFA and CAF referee Wilfred Mukuna now wants to play an active role in the national administration of local football and is eyeing a post on the ZIFA board. Mukuna yesterday publicly released his manifesto, copies of which have been sent to members of the assembly, telling the ZIFA electoral college made up of the association’s councillors that he intended to use the more than two decades of refereeing service and administering match officials to a bigger scale and work from within the ZIFA board.

The ZIFA assembly will converge in Harare on December 5 to choose a new leadership following their October 3 resolution to revoke the mandate of the board that was led by Cuthbert Dube.

Mukuna, one of a rare of breed of top no-nonsense referees to emerge from this country, handled the whistle between 1984 and 2001 after which he became a CAF Match Commissioner in 2005 and was ordained as a FIFA Match Commissioner three years later.

He still remains a CAF and FIFA Match Commissioner to date. The Harare property consultant, who is also a FIFA Futuro instructor and CAF referees’ technical instructor has between 2005 to date served in the ZIFA Referees Committee as its vice-chairman, with his main thrust over the years being to identify and develop the country’s match officials.

After years in the match officials’ trenches, Mukuna now believes the time has come for him to go beyond the referees committee and become involved in the administration of the national game at the highest level. Yesterday, the former Zimbabwe Referee of the Year rolled out his blueprint in which he pledges to “add value to the game which helped me to rise to where I am today.

“I have the passion, I want to serve my nation, I have the energy to see ZIFA’s turnaround and I am a servant of the people,’’ Mukuna said. The 59-year-old referee is also concerned with the fact that referees do not have a strong department in the ZIFA secretariat despite playing a critical role in ensuring that matches are played well.

Mukuna said if elected he would “work closely with schools, colleges, universities, uninformed forces, churches, media, the corporate sector, Sport and Recreation Commission, Zimbabwe Olympic Committee, diplomatic missions, local authorities, Government departments and non-governmental organisations’’.

These institutions, Mukuna said are also key partners that ZIFA could not afford to overlook if the association is to turn on a new leaf and lift the levels of the national game.

Mukuna did not hide his prioritisation of referees among his list of objectives with the CAF instructor outlining his desire to improve the quality of the country’s match officials and uplifting the women’s football standards through the development of more referees for that sector.

“My objectives are:

• Strengthen the referees department through resourcing
• Increase the number of training workshops for referees. The courses to be run at district, provincial and regional level
• Lobby for opportunities for local referees at various competitions including the COSAFA, CAF, and the FIFA World Cup and additional slots for IFA male and female referees
• Have more female referees trained
• Run young talent referees development programme starting at school level
• Run training programmes for local match commissioners with bias towards female commissioners
• Make mandatory that only qualified referees handle school football matches through the training of primary and secondary school teachers
• Secure sponsorship for referees development programmes
• Embrace a vigorous awareness programme on match fixing, FIFA integrity
• Establish strategic partnerships with referees committees around the world
• Assist in the development of women football through training of its leadership on the laws of the game’’

Mukuna said his tenure in ZIFA would be anchored on team play with fellow board members and insisted that he would not tolerate corruption in the game. “I have the global network, I do not tolerate corruption, I believe in team play, I have the technical knowledge and I stand for Fair play,’’ Mukuna said.

A confident Mukuna will now be hoping that the ZIFA assembly will choose him to be one of four board members from the 10-man list of candidates vying for positions who include Jackson Munyaka, Piraishe Mabhena, Musa Mandaza, Beadle Gwasira, Philemon Machana, Lewis Uriri, Joseph Musariri, Edzai Kasinauyo, and Felton Kamambo.