THE Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) president Cuthbert Dube has, at long last, acknowledged — at least in word — that success at senior international competitions is anchored in a systematic development of football starting with a firm foundation at grassroots level. -Innocent Kurwa
Speaking in Selous, some 60km out of Harare on the way to Chegutu, where he was attending the Seven Heroes tournament finals at the weekend, Dube, who apparently has been accused of not attending a lot of football matches, said that he preferred to watch grassroots matches as, in his own words, that is the cornerstone of success at higher levels.
Whether this response was purely coincidental and convenient, given where he was, or a profound position that Dube holds is really not the issue here – the statement strums the right tune for the future of football and, hopefully, this philosophy is now incorporated in the country’s football culture and way of doing things!
Dube cited the example of Zambians, that he said, were successful at international level because they had invested their time in developing grassroots football.
For those who might not know, Zambia won their first-ever Africa Nations Cup (Afcon) title in 2012 in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, but unfortunately failed to defend the title successfully in this year’s Afcon edition in South Africa.
Zambia have also won the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) Cup and it is rather sad that they recently lost their national coach Hervé Renard — who guided them to the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) title — after the Frenchman resigned to take up the managerial post at Sochaux.
The Zifa president could have also cited any of four African nations — Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Tunisia and Morocco — that are flying the continent’s flag high in the ongoing Fifa World Cup Under-17 finals in the United Arab Emirates.
Zimbabwe has not qualified for world finals at any age group and this certainly contributes to failure to reach finals of tournaments such as Afcon.
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It must not escape our minds though that we have qualified for the African Nations Championship (Chan) finals in South Africa next year!
But back to basics, we need to develop our football right from the lowest level, in terms of age, and for this to happen we need to take a hard look and make an honest assessment of what it is that is creating this stunted development of football, 33 years after readmission to international football at independence.
Finance is certainly not one of the problems — Dube himself says Fifa have provided money for development of grassroots soccer and this is not the first time the world football governing body has done that.
So problems are somewhere else, but rather than dwell on these it is more worthwhile to suggest solutions that enhance the systematic development of our football.
Just like grassroots soccer is the foundation of football at all other levels, the foundation of any meaningful and successful football system is the laying in place of proper administrative and operational structures, right from the district to the national level.
Local government districts already exist and these should be adopted in the Zifa structures.
Some people will argue that these are already in Zifa, the argument is that their existence must be both in the spirit and word, rather than in spirit only as is at present.
Both primary and secondary schools should be the backbone of the district structures because, in my view, this would create the best safeguard against age cheats, although it might not be easy to eliminate this malpractice.
People in these structures must be properly trained in administration and be properly incentivised in order to reduce the tendency toward wayward actions.
The Sport ministry’s district sports officers are a necessary resource that should be incorporated in the Zifa district structures and their offices can play a meaningful role by being the district offices for football meetings.
From district the structures could cascade through provinces to regions and then national.
The rest of the football structures in the country — players’ unions, coaches, referees, agents and everything else to do with football — must also be realigned to incorporate best practice corporate governance, especially in respect of adhering to Zifa and Fifa rules and regulations, qualifications, structures and all, in order to ensure that all that has something to do with football is singing from the same song sheet.
It must be accepted and appreciated that anything out of line is cancerous and this malignant cell will eventually be contagious and contaminate all the others!
Dube, quite rightly, does not place much emphasis on watching matches — it is not the panacea to the problems that weaken our football.
More critical and important is accepting the ills and then finding the correct solutions!
In the health sector they say that the first step to healing is accepting one’s condition — rather than living in denial!
For long time, a lot of people associated with football in this country have lived in denial of the shortcomings that abound in the sport and as long as we remain in that state of mind our football will not develop.
Dube also says that he will soon engage the Local Government ministry to seek government assistance in obtaining land on which to build new Zifa headquarters — Fifa have already provided funds for the construction.
While it is appreciated that land in local government areas falls under this ministry, ultimately, would it not be wiser of Dube if he first engaged the new Sport ministry of Andrew Langa, and used him to reach his counterpart at Local Government?
This would be in acknowledgment of the importance of a separate Sport ministry, something Dube, among others, campaigned for and in any case this would also give Langa and his team something meaningful to do!
- Hats off to Orlando Pirates and Al Ahly for reaching the Africa Club Champions League final set to be played next month.Pirates of South Africa dew 1-1 with Espérance of Tunisia in North Africa on Saturday and qualified for the final on away goals while Egyptians Al Ahly, the defending champions, edged Cotón Sport of Cameroon 7-6 in a penalty shoot-out after their semi-final second leg ended 1-1 for a 2-2 aggregate.
Unlike the European Champions League final which is decided in 90 minutes, our continental title decider is over two legs — home and away — and Pirates will be in the hunt for their second Caf Champions League title.
