Zimpapers Logo

Those who back Cuthbert Dube say that his fight against corruption in the game was a good one, and they are right on that note, but that the Zifa president has found himself in the headlines, on the front page and not on the back pages, for what others have called the closest thing to smooth boardroom corruption, where he allegedly earned a fortune every month while the company he headed limped, betrayed his real intentions.

TODAY, the zifa councillors will gather for their usual pre-World Cup feast to choose a leadership to steer their stricken ship, battered by rough seas and crippled by severe storms, during a turbulent four year trip in which it veered wildly off course.

It’s a doomed ship that some fear, with considerable justification, is now beyond repair and, like the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, could be lost for good, stuck somewhere in the depth of a remote and inhospitable part of the ocean.

It’s a wrecked ship that some fear, with considerable reason, is now beyond salvation and, just like the Titanic on its doomed voyage across the North Atlantic Ocean in April 1992, is on a trip that is set for a disastrous ending.

It’s a game whose soul has been tortured, in four long years that have looked like a decade, by a clueless leadership that lost its direction, from the first day they came into office, and under their flawed, and at times primitive leadership based on modules plucked from the Stone Age, it has lurched from one monumental crisis to the other.

It’s a national sporting discipline that has been short on leadership with substance and long on comedy and controversy with its kamikaze leaders increasingly out of touch with the demands of steering such a stricken ship, in such rough waters, the majority of them decided it wasn’t even worth it to try and come back.

Amid the ruins, you will see a generation of the country’s brightest teenage footballers who saw their dreams of dancing with the best on the continent, and in the process benefiting from the exposure that comes with such competition, being blown away by a leadership that became the first one, in the history of the game in this country, to fail to send them on a national assignment.

Those Under-17s who were told, on the day of their trip to Brazzaville in November 2012 that there was no money to underwrite their flight, didn’t only lose the exposure that comes with playing on foreign soil at such a stage, but also lost faith in a national football leadership that they had always believed was there to take care of their interests.

To restore their faith, in the leadership of our national game, after the wild events that characterised the abortive trip to Brazzaville, and the emotional wreckage inflicted by that sense of helplessness, amid a flood of media reports that painted a gloomy picture of an immediate future where the youth teams would be frozen from the continental stage for three years, will not be as easy an assignment as it looks.

Those Under-20s who were told, on the day of their scheduled trip to Luanda that there was no money to bankroll their flight, didn’t only lose the opportunity of growing their game and mental strength, by playing in hostile foreign territories, but also lost faith in a national football leadership they had mistaken to be their allies, if not their guardians, in this journey.

To restore that faith, to repair that shattered bond, after the psychological destruction inflicted by all that madness, and make them believe again that the football leadership is there not only to protect but also further their interests, won’t be easy.

That those Under-20s of 2012 have become the Warriors of today underlines the crisis that we face, in the wake of that bond we shattered two years ago, and to expect them to have confidence that the men who run the game are there to safeguard, and promote, their interests will be expecting too much from people whose confidence in the system was blown away when their souls were pregnant with innocence.

There are things that can never be camouflaged by even the greatest of spin-doctoring wizards, including those in the media, and one of the enduring realities about our football is that, in the past four years, it has not only stagnated but certainly taken a number of big steps backwards in a reverse journey into the darkness.

Frozen, in its perpetual state of darkness where time appeared to stand still, the Warriors had coaches galore, from clowns like Tom Saintfiet who were smuggled here and fast-tracked into working without even a work permit, to the comic set-up of co-coaches in which Norman Mapeza and Madinda Ndlovu worked in a dysfunctional unit, the return of Rahman Gumbo, the experiment with Dieter Pagels and the arrival of Ian Gorowa.

But it’s a dark period in which they never progressed and failed, twice, to qualify for the Nations Cup finals, including the 2013 tournament where they only needed to beat two teams and book their place in South Africa, and staggered to their worst World Cup campaign in history where they failed to win even one of their six games.

And, in all the doomed qualifiers, the useless and hopeless zifa leadership was culpable.
Their smuggling and imposition of Saintfiet was blamed for a key result at home against Cape Verde, which went against us and paralysed the entire campaign, in our quest for a place at the 2012 Nations Cup finals, while their fatal decision to charge a record US$10 for the cheapest tickets, in the home final 2013 Nations Cup qualifier against Angola, kept the fans at home and robbed the Warriors of a key ally where their voices could have helped in the total destruction of the Negras Palancas who were there for the taking.

The 2014 World Cup qualifiers started with Rahman in charge and ended with Pagels in the hot seat but, at a crucial stage, Jonathan Mashingaidze, a spin-doctoring wizard of considerable craft and a bootlicking genius of incredible gifts who believes his assignment is to serve his bosses, and not the game, decided to use Knowledge Musona and Ovidy Karuru as pawns in their chess battle and the damage of that foolish stunt was so damaging the team never recovered.

To Back Or Not To Back Cuthbert Dube
All this wouldn’t have mattered, really, if those who presided over this dark period had accepted responsibility rather than try and bury their shortcomings eternally in the shambolic way they tried to turn Asiagate into an exercise to eliminate their perceived opponents and critics, something responsible for the stagnation of this issue.

But that didn’t happen and, somehow, zifa president Cuthbert Dube finds himself as the favourite to win another four-year term in charge of our football with the entire machinery of the association, including its secretariat, seemingly working overtime, in the past few weeks, to ensure that the status quo remains the same.

Dube is the first zifa president to seek re-election, in the past 15 or so years, and that probably explains why the secretariat has found it difficult to handle these elections.

Those who back Dube say that his fight against corruption in the game was a good one, and they are right on that note, but that the zifa president has found himself in the headlines, on the front page and not on the back pages, for what others have called the closest thing to smooth boardroom corruption, where he allegedly earned a fortune every month while the company he headed limped, betrayed his real intentions.

Given the headlines that followed him in recent months, where he was portrayed as a monster, how will it be possible that he will rehabilitate his image, in the corporate corridors, to earn the trust of the very company chiefs that he needs in his corner, in the event that he wins this election, who are needed to liquidate the US$5 million debt and make zifa functional again?

Those who are backing Dube will say he is a victim of politics, a line that the zifa president was happy to emphasise at his choreographed press conference on Thursday night before a select band of journalists who, for one reason or another, decided not to ask hard-hitting questions, but there is no doubt that he lost a lot of moral credibility, among a lot of ordinary people who used to back him in the past, when his mega earnings became public knowledge.

Some of his critics have even gone as far as to say that what was packaged as his personal injection into the game, at various levels during his tenure, was in fact a donation from the company that he used to work for.

But his supporters will say that football and controversy go hand-in-hand and they can point to the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, who has also been accused of a lot of things in the past, but has somehow always found a way to beat the opposition and keep his seat as the leader of world football.

If the entire world, they will tell you, is happy to give Blatter the benefit of doubt, where he has been accused of a number of questionable dealings, especially by the British newspapers, then why should they, just a small constituency, not be in a position to give their leader a benefit of doubt?

The difference here is that Blatter works for an organisation that is functional, which he has helped to keep profitable, while Dube works for a zifa that is sinking in debt and where the arrears stood at just US$600 000 when they took over, four years ago, they now stand at a staggering plus US$5 million.

When Dube charmed the electorate, in the race for the zifa presidency four years ago, he did so on the back of a promise that he will deliver the corporate governance that zifa badly lacked and will bring in a number of sponsors who would flood the scene and turn this perennially poor game into a thriving one and, now and again, he used PSMAS, and how he turned it around, as an example.

But, four years down the line, it is fair to say that zifa are worse off, in terms of corporate governance, than they were before his team took over, and it hasn’t only been just a case of financial statements that were not audited but even the lending and borrowing that were not backed, as should be the case at each public organisation, by the board resolutions.

It’s not right to just use Asiagate as a shield when the issue of sponsors, or the lack of them, crops up because, as we have seen in South Africa, Nike didn’t hesitate to come on board to become their kit sponsor even after the battering that the safa image suffered from the match-fixing scam ahead of the 2010 World Cup finals.

We haven’t seen a run on the national game from companies that have traditionally supported football and Nedbank, Castle, Absa, Telkom, you name them, are not only still in the trenches but are putting in huge sums of money into the game, even against a background of the damage that the match-fixing scam might have inflicted on our neighbours across the Limpopo.

Even closer to home, we saw Delta come on board to partner the PSL in 2011, the first year that Asiagate was on the pages of every newspaper just about every day, we saw Mbada Diamonds come on board and partner the top-flight league, we saw BancABC re-introduce the Super Eight and also go into bed with Dynamos and Highlanders and we saw NetOne also join the fray.

So, during the same period, the PSL attracted at least five partners and zifa none and how can one segment of our national game claim that it is suffering, from the bad publicity associated with a scandal, when another segment, where all the players that were mentioned in the scandal play, continues to enjoy great support from the sponsors?

Dube has to find another excuse, for his failure to bring in the sponsors, and those who back him will say that giving him another four years will sort that one out but he should have started with bringing in just one firm, in four years, and that, at least, would have provided hope.
I know that he can win today because I have long stopped to be surprised by our councillors but one gets the feeling that he faces bigger challenges, in trying to steer his ship, this time around than he probably did four years ago.

But when you have an election where the future of our game could be decided by a decisive vote from representatives of beach football, in this country, then you know why we are in this mess.

When The zifa Secretariat Turned Into A Commissariat
One of the enduring images of this election will be that picture of Trevor David Carelse-Juul at zifa House, locked out of the premises, when he went there to demand the voters’ roll so that he could verify one or two things about the delegates who were coming for the polls.

A few hours later, another picture imaged, Dube holding a media conference, as a zifa presidential candidate, at his home in Harare, with Mashingaidze holding the microphone to enable the president to read his notes without any hassles. Dube was addressing the media as a candidate for the elections and he discussed nothing but the elections and Mashingaidze was there, by his side, aiding him to do his presentation, at his home for that matter, just a few hours after another presidential candidate had been locked out of zifa House.

Xolisani Gwesela was at zifa House when Carelse-Juul arrived there and the treatment that he received, with a security guard being directed to lock him out of the premises, showed us how much this organisation has taken steps back into the Stone Age.

But that is besides the point.
For Gwesela, the zifa spokesman, to treat Juul with such contempt, just two days before an election where he could emerge as his boss, can only tell us a few things.

One of them is that Gwesela, just like his immediate boss Mashingaidze, are very confident that this election will not produce another president except Dube and Carelse-Juul can be humiliated, as much as possible, because he won’t be the man they will be reporting to when the drama has all ended today.

Maybe that explains why Mashingaidze, whom we have never seen anywhere close to the media conferences addressed by the other three delegates, not only chose to flank Dube, at his home, on Thursday night, but even decided to act as his aide by holding the microphone.
But stranger things have been known to happen in football than just a zifa president, who is a front-runner, being surprised in an election.

And how will this zifa secretariat, which has turned itself into a commissariat, confront the brutal reality of their flawed conduct, in a post-election scenario, where Carelse-Juul will be the president, where Nigel Munyati will be the president or where Leslie Gwindi will be the president?

A friend of mine said yesterday they will simply not come to work on Monday.
But it’s difficult to cast away allegations that this election is not being played on a level playing field when the zifa Secretariat, which is supposed to be machine of this process, suddenly takes sides like this and treats others with respect and other candidates with contempt.

A View From Bulawayo (Lovemore Dube, Chronicle, Friday, March 29, 2014)
By virtue of being the sitting president Dube has the system, including secretariat, favouring him to return.

The future looks uncertain for full time staffers as some have been fingered for the wrongs done by the present administration.
It ranges from a non-existent human resources policy to near incompetency with so many decisions made returning to haunt the national association such as Asiagate and Centralgate, cases that have taken longer than their welcome.

So many people have been left bruised by the two and also the image of the game has suffered as the handling has left so much to be desired.
In the end it has appeared as if some individuals were targeted for elimination through such.

Many employees have been fired at zifa in the last four years than in the previous 30 years of the association’s existence. This points to a problem at 53 Livingstone and the principals.

His successes with CHAN this year also won him admirers as it was the first time in a continental tournament that Zimbabwe has gone as far as the semi-finals.

But CHAN is not the real deal. Dube and his lieutenants failed to qualify for two consecutive Africa Cup of Nations finals — the 2012 and 2013 games. He could not make it to the World Cup finals which are a true reflection of success for any sitting president.

The soccer family has remained deeply divided with those pro-Dube enjoying fruits of their association.
Those that have dared to have different opinions to his administration have been dealt with drastically and thrown into the game’s dustbins.

To God Be The Glory!

Come on United !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chicharitoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0772545199
WhatsApp Messenger – 0772545199
Email — [email protected]
Skype — sharuko58
Twitter — @Chakariboy
You can also interact with ROBSON SHARUKO on Facebook, Viber and on ZBC’s weekly television football magazine programme, GamePlan on Monday nights, or read his material in The Southern Times.