By Batsirai Sango.
The international break came and left with qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup the main attraction, considering how the global football showpiece will be the first to have 48 teams and also historical in the that it will be jointly hosted by Mexico, Canada and the United States of America.
The tournament is going to be the first of its kind to have 3 host nations, Mexico having previously hosted in 1986 with the tournament indelibly entrenched in the memory of the global football community and immortalized by Diego Maradona’s finest hour with the famous Hand of God goal and the goal of the century both goals coming against England.
The US hosted in 1994 were also the final had to be decided in a penalty shootout the first time it was happening with the Samba boys of Brazil facing off the Azzurri of Italy with Brazil winning their 4th of 5 world cup titles,
The nation’s number one team the Zimbabwe Warriors are also relishing their prospects of finally qualifying for the football fiesta having agonizingly came close to qualifying almost 3 decades back, with the late Reinhard Fabisch and the Dream Team coming to just 90 minutes away from USA 1994, were it not for some dubious and bad officiating.
With 9 teams set to qualify from the great motherland up from the previous 5, football mad fanatics hope the Warriors will be amongst the plus 4 team slots availed for the continent.
The Warriors went into the international break under the tutelage of Portuguese gaffer Baltemar Brito who had earlier in the just ended season been leading Highlanders football club’s march towards the title until he was appointed national team coach in September.
In group C alongside regional nemesis South Africa and Lesotho erstwhile continental giants Nigeria, Benin, Rwanda, Zimbabwe kicked off their campaign taking on the Wasps of Rwanda in Kigali and the Super Eagles of Nigeria both matches the Warriors collecting 2 points getting a nil all draw with Rwanda and one all draw with Nigeria.
Results aside, the Warriors of Zimbabwe had to host their home games away from home playing on the turf of continental brothers in Rwanda on account of not having proper infrastructure that is football friendly in place.
What a disgrace the longest walk of shame that a nation with a leadership that brags of having the highest literacy on the continent have no CAF licensed and approved football facility let alone the world governing body FIFA. In one of the previous articles the publication sought to articulate the importance of infrastructure in the modern game and with the developments from the just ended international break it goes to show
More than four decades after the attainment of Uhuru a nation littered with so much potential has no football facility fit enough as per CAF and FIFA standards, one wonders what authorities at 53 Livingstone Avenue (ZIFA headquarters) are doing purporting as of leaders of the game in the country.
What is the leadership at Chancellor Road Avenue doing or in retrospect what is it that they have been doing through the responsible ministry for the many years they have forcibly continued to retain power when the nation has to host football matches away from home which is more costly to the ever-strained budget.
No country in the southern part of the continent Zambia, South Africa, Malawi have had had to play matches away from home on account of having poor football infrastructure.
Never has the FNB in South Africa, Levy Mwanawasa stadium in Zambia, Kamuzu stadium in Malawi been deemed unfit to host international matches and have these countries hosted international outside their shores for the simple reason that their football infrastructure was not up to the expected standard.
We ought to look ourselves in the mirror and see the image of us we see right through that and ask ourselves whether or not we are pleased with what we see, I mean what is so bad about doing the right thing that gets us the nod from the football governing authorities both at CAF and FIFA.
How does Zimbabwe as a nation seat at the football table with other nations on the continent even regionally in the COSAFA region with no football infrastructure fit to host an international match and get into the record books for all the wrong reasons.
The National sports stadium in Harare built way back in the 80s has never been touched, or spruced up let alone upgraded to meet international standards since and when it was built and commissioned, even in the aftermath of disaster in 2002 where football fans were killed in a stampede.
What incompetent leadership we have and primitive people we are sorry to conclude that in 2023 the length and breadth of Zimbabwe has no football venue feat enough to host an international match.
The giant National sports stadium in the capital is a disgrace and a sheer reflection of the incompetence obtaining at Chancellor Road Avenue in Harare, with the football stadium still being watered by hosepipes, the more reason why the pitch conditions have been in continuous perpetual free-fall mode invoking the CAF stance towards the venue.
With no bias the continental governing football authority ought to enact legal frameworks to the effect that a country can and will only take part in CAF recognized matches only if they have the required infrastructure in place not like the situation we witnessed with the Warriors during the international break.
As the custodians of the game on the continent CAF also ought to be drivers in ensuring that the more than 50 plus members have the necessary resources in place in order to grow the game and attract the commercial returns it brings.
This is 2023 how can something like that be happening in a country that has the most, arguably one of the most skilled personal on the continent and has the most dilapidated football infrastructure on the continent, you wonder what all those skills are being channelled and invested towards.
It all points to poor leadership both at ZIFA the local football governing authority and the executive at national level, that a nation has to endure such a long walk of shame of not having a football venue feat enough to host international matches, what more when club football begins.
The local football governing authorities have been bedeviled by perennial cash problems and to imagine the financial commitments that comes with playing the entire qualifiers campaign away from home one wonders how they will go about that situation. Its more or less the political talk around the holding of by elections less than a year after disputed elections set to cost around 5million US dollars yet hospitals, nurses, doctors have no basics to fulfill and carry their sacred mandate, let alone dilapidated football infrastructure that does not meet CAF and FIFA standards.
Olympian Kirsty Coventry the Minister of Sports is innocent in all this mess, she is only guilty of being minister to a self-inaugurated government that has literally failed and continues to fail dismally especially in the headline being articulated in this article.
