Inside sport: Zim football at a standstill

By The Standard | Nov. 28, 2021

Although Kamambo claims he is still the football leader, he has not been making any decisions with regards to the game while the Commission itself is still to appoint new leadership to run the affairs of Zifa.

BY MICHAEL KARIATI

IT is now two weeks since the Sport and Recreation Commission (SRC) suspended the entire Zifa leadership and since then, everything at the local football mother body’s headquarters has been at a standstill.

As things stand right now, Zimbabwean football has no leadership with the Felton Kamambo-led board insisting that they are still in charge while the SRC, on the other hand, maintains that Kamambo is now history.

As a result, key decisions including that of the appointment of the national team coach and the welfare of other national teams have not been addressed.

Norman Mapeza’s contract expires at the end of the 2022 World Cup campaign and a decision has to be made whether to stick with him until after Afcon 2022 or appoint another coach.

The Zimbabwe Under 17 team for the Cosafa Cup and the Mighty Warriors also need urgent attention as they continue their Afcon journey but there is nobody to turn to.

“It’s not healthy for a country to go for so long without football leadership. It shows the confusion that is in our sport. If the SRC have made a decision, they should live with it,” argues football critic Admire Muhimeke.

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Events on the ground, however, seem to be pointing to the fact that the SRC themselves are gradually losing their grip on the Zifa situation that at one time seemed well within their wraps.

Judging from what is on the ground, it appears the supreme sports body in the country is now scared of the same Fifa international ban they so much boasted they were not scared of when they offloaded Kamambo.

What we are not sure of is whether the SRC understands what the Fifa ban is all about or that it has been exaggerated to the extent that they now feel intimidated.

That the promised interim committee to run the affairs of the Zimbabwean game is still to be appointed two weeks after Kamambo and Friends were shown the exit clearly shows the shaky position the SRC now stands.

The Commission seem to have realized that they cannot appoint this committee without receiving Fifa backlash and are now trying to follow the right procedure, something they should have done long back.

The Fifa approval they are now seeking to appoint this new committee should have been sought before they even sacked Kamambo in order to protect themselves from the decisions they were going to take later.

Those in the know-how believe it would have been advisable for the SRC to have informed Fifa of their intention to appoint a normalisation committee before they even kicked out Kamambo and Crew.

Whatever the case is, what is as clear as the blue sky is that the SRC will not make a U-turn on the decision to suspend Zifa unless something out of the ordinary pushes them to do so.

Even so, there are sceptics who believe that the SRC has done nothing at all as their efforts began and ended with the suspension of the Zifa leadership and nothing more

Only when they see new faces at 53 Livingstone Avenue will they stand up to salute the SRC for bringing fresh inspiration at the headquarters of Zimbabwean football – Right now, the same old problems remain.