InsideSport: Are we all that poor?

By Michael Kariati | Oct. 22, 2023

Surely, Botswana or South Africa would have been ideal choices not only because of the low costs of travel involved but also because of the huge contingent of Zimbabweans based there.

IT’S confirmed, that the Warriors of Zimbabwe will play their first two 2026 World Cup Qualifiers in the jungles of Kigali in Rwanda.

This includes their home match against the Super Eagles of Nigeria which is coming on November 20, a week after playing against Rwanda.

Surely, the whole world is looking and laughing at us asking why we were making all that noise to have our Fifa ban lifted when we did not have a stadium for our own national teams.

Even some locals too are not being left behind questioning why they celebrated Zimbabwe’s return to the Fifa club when they are not enjoying the benefits of that international return.

Surely, 43 years into independence, we do not have a stadium fit enough to host international football, and worse still we cannot afford to send our team to Rwanda and bring it back immediately after the game.

The Zifa normalisation committee contends that Zimbabwe is hosting the Super Eagles in Rwanda because it is costly to return home after the Rwanda game and then make the trip to Botswana for the Nigeria match.

The question is, are we so poor that we cannot afford a charter plane that can fly our national team back to Harare soon after the Rwanda game and then play Nigeria either in Botswana or South Africa where Warriors fans can afford to travel?

Did the normalisation committee approach the Sports and Recreation Commission for government assistance to overcome this problem or as usual, they — once again — ganged up and decided to go it alone?

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Wasn’t it worth a try to seek government assistance bearing in mind that the SRC forwarded a request to the government to fund all national teams as was revealed by the Commission’s chairman Gerald Mlotshwa?

Surely, Botswana or South Africa would have been ideal choices not only because of the low costs of travel involved but also because of the huge contingent of Zimbabweans based there.

Even so, why use a stadium in a foreign land when we had more than a year to renovate our own stadium without any pressure on us since we were on a Fifa ban?

What is disheartening is that there has not been a word or any action from the politicians who just a few months ago were promising heaven on earth in exchange for a vote in the general elections.

What, we however, know for sure is that African football dictates that a team that wins all its home games usually qualifies for major finals, and without a home, Zimbabwe’s Warriors are surely heading for a fall in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers.

We can lie to ourselves and we can dream over and over again, but the truth is that we will be lucky to come out with even a single point from the games against Rwanda and Nigeria.

The prediction is that our World Cup dream has ended before the journey has even started because it will not be easy to recover from the points we are likely to lose in Kigali.

Worse still, the danger is that we might even play all our remaining games in foreign lands if the attitude at the top remains the same.

Our hope is that the authorities have understood the effects of what playing in a foreign land means and are willing to change the way they are or have been doing things.

They should understand that the national team is the pride and display window of the nation and what happens to it — like playing home matches in foreign lands - portrays or reflects the picture of the country back home.

We appeal to the authorities to speed up renovations at the National Sports Stadium so that we can be able to use it for the other four remaining home matches against Benin, Lesotho, Rwanda, and South Africa.

The next World Cup qualifiers are way off in June and surely there is enough time to upgrade the venue up to the required Caf and Fifa standards.

The whole of Zimbabwe wants a return to the good old Dream Team days when the whole nation — Asians, blacks, coloreds, and whites — packed the NSS in song and dance in support of their beloved Warriors.

That said and on a lighter note — Perhaps the one-week extra stay in Kigali could give some lucky traveling Zimbabwean football fans the opportunity to go out in search of jobs in a country where both the pay and the environment are good.

So, Kigali, here we come.