The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube Sports Correspondent
FIFA Futuro Three instructor Kennedy Ndebele has called for the reconstitution of the national team to involve all eligible players instead of relying on Under-23 players. The experienced football administrator said the country had a number of good senior potential national team players dotted around the country but it was unfortunate they were not contributing to the nation because Zifa decided to rely on the inexperienced Under-23s.
“We have good footballers as a country but we have decided to alienate them because of age yet they have the capabilities of making the nation proud. We have a lot of players in the South African Premiership, one of the top leagues in Africa but we are shutting them out,’’ said Ndebele.
“We simply decide to focus on the Under-23s without having a programme that groomed the players from a young age and think we can succeed, I doubt it will work,” he added.
Ndebele said the likes of Cuthbert Malajila, Khama Billiat, Knowledge Musona, Silas Songani, Ali Sadiki and Tendai Ndoro were not being given the opportunity to shine for their country yet they were the toast of their foreign leagues.
He said Zifa actually stood to benefit a lot from having those players by cementing the Warriors’ brand and attracting sponsors.
“The senior national team is supposed to be our pride but if we do not have the senior men’s team how are we going to attract funding. Once we have big names in the national team companies will obviously want to associate with the Warriors because chances of success will be higher,’’ said Ndebele.
“Last week’s poor attendance of the Under-23s match against Cameroon at Rufaro Stadium is a sign of how people view the Young Warriors, not as the senior national team but a developmental side.”
Ndebele, who is also the Premier Soccer League chief executive officer, who was, however, expressing his personal opinion, said the country’s football governing body could also be losing out on income due to the penchant of unnecessarily reducing gate charges at Warriors matches.
He said football was the premium product of Zifa and it was uncalled for to reduce gate charges as this would eat into income that would otherwise go a long way towards alleviating the football governing body’s financial plight. Ndebele was also quick to point out that there was a need for proper management of the gates during national team matches.
The former Highlanders chairman said even in the local league there were good players and shutting them out because they were above the age of 23 would not work in favour of the local game.
Zimbabwe is the only country in Southern Africa that is not involved in friendly games this weekend that has been set aside by Fifa as the international friendlies date.
Ndebele said it would be easy for Zifa to focus on securing a sponsorship that would fund the senior national team if it had big name players.
“If Zifa curtails on large delegations and makes it lean, reducing it to 25 players and officials only, I believe one sponsor can be able to fund accommodation, travel, allowances and other such related costs.
“It is not something that is impossible but changing the way things are handled can also assist. Having a delegation of 40 people travelling obviously increases costs hence we would need to trim that,” he said.
Reacting to the current crisis affecting the country’s football, Ndebele said it was time those involved in football should unite for the good of the game and cast aside divisions along personality lines.
He said lack of clear policy direction from the Zifa board was plaguing the game and the assembly was not coming up with strong resolutions to turn the sport’s fortunes around.
“The Zifa board and assembly are not making the much needed resolutions to take our game forward and we seem to be just lurching from one problem to another. The board seems to be incapacitated and are not meeting and making decisions and resolutions as they should be,’’ the highly respected sports administrator said.
“While there is no company or organisation that is not in debt in the country there should be a proper way of handling the debts and prioritise the critical ones that can negatively affect the operations of the entity. This issue could have certainly been handled better,” said Ndebele.
He called for an urgent indaba to address the crisis at Zifa.
Ndebele said the indaba should be held over several days with serious resolutions being taken and they should be effectively implemented and executed by the secretariat.
He said it was unfortunate all the Zifa boobs would turn the country into a laughing stock within Fifa and Zimbabwe would certainly be coming up as an example of “how not to run football during workshops that are run by the soccer governing body’’.
“We are going to be prime examples during Fifa courses and imagine if you are attending these, you would be looking for somewhere to hide, having our property auctioned, having an astro-turf being auctioned and now our ban from the 2018 World Cup will be used as case studies and we will be turned into laughing stock because of these boobs,” added the Fifa regional instructor for administration and management.
Ndebele said local football was littered with backbiting and fighting over personalities instead of people uniting for the good of the game.
He said such petty fights were creating a breeding ground for failure because there were squabbles over who is in which position instead of putting heads together to improve the state of football in the country.
