THE day has finally arrived and the wishes of the football family will be granted this evening when the Lincoln Mutasa-led Zifa normalisation committee walks out of the football headquarters at 12pm.
It has been a long wait for the NC to leave office after a succession of blunders which have left Zimbabwean football worse off than what it was when they came into office on July 11, 2023.
Zimbabwe are now 129th on the Fifa world rankings and 38th in Africa compared to 125th in the world and 33rd on the continent on the day Mutasa and friends took over the football controlling body.
This is not surprising as over that short period, the NC changed coaches at will and experimented with Baltemar Brito, Norman Mapeza, Jairos Tapera and a fourth was on his way for Afcon 2025 had they been allowed to stay on for longer.
All the coaches had one complaint that it was not them but the NC — or one of their office staff — who selected the national team players and dumped them on the door of the coach to map out a strategy.
It would have been an allegation had it been only one coach with the complaint but one after the other they all raised the same issue and none at the NC bothered to stand up to dispute the fact.
Surely, the Mutasa-led NC will go down in history for presiding over the worst Warriors ever, one that could even lose 2-0 to Lesotho and for that matter in a match as big as a World Cup Qualifier.
What is surprising is that the NC was composed largely of former football stars Lincoln Mutasa, Rosemary Mugadza, and Sikumbuzo Ndebele, who were expected to know better about how to handle the national team.
- Open letter to President Mnangagwa
- Feature: ‘It’s worse right now than under Mugabe’: Sikhala pays the price of opposition in solitary cell
- Masvingo turns down fire tender deal
- Human-wildlife conflict drive African wild dogs to extinction
Keep Reading
Worse still was the fact that the Warriors were reduced to a boozers outfit by being forced to put on jerseys which looked like they were made in the dark alleys by the look of their quality.
Apart from destroying the national team, the other thing that the football family will not forgive the NC for is that they are leaving office without fulfilling their mandate which was to hold Zifa elections and install a new Zifa President.
If only they had taken their time to listen to the noise out there whenever the words Zifa Elections were mentioned Mutasa and Friends would have known exactly what the football family wanted.
That Zifa election fever has gone even higher since the day it was known that the NC was going and already two candidates Wangu Mazodze and Marshall Gore have openly declared their candidacy for the Zifa Presidency.
Although their term of reference ends today June 30, 2024, the football family wanted the NC gone as far back as November 2023 when they realised that Mutasa and Partners were deliberately delaying holding these Zifa polls
Unlike Kenya and Malawi who are now used to NCs, this was the first time in Zimbabwe that Fifa had imposed an NC and what a disaster it turned out to be — far worse than what the country was running away from.
It would, however, be cruel not to give credit to the NC for their enthusiasm but their problem was that they did not have a clue as to how to go about their business and were also just too proud to seek help.
As we wave them goodbye, we are looking forward to the new NC with optimism and in the knowledge that Zimbabwe's short term future is in the hands of a man who has succeeded in most of what he has done in sport.
Information at hand is that Tommy Sithole is on Tuesday taking over as chairman of a new normalisation committee with their special target being to usher in a new Zifa board hence the euphoria outside there.
Sithole knows the problems in football and has a rough idea on how to tackle them having been part of the Zifa restructuring committee which was appointed by the SRC to investigate the problems in football and recommend solutions.
Surely, Zimbabwean football is better off without Mutasa and crew and Sithole needs to redirect the Zimbabwean game to the right path it was supposed to take in the first place.
He, however, should be reminded that the football family is not interested in anything else but Zifa elections and the coming in of a new Zifa Board — That is all.
*For your comments, views and suggestions mkariati@gmail.com or WhatsApp on 0773 266 779.
