Zimbabwe Warriors disbanded…again

By Augustine Hwata

ZIFA have disbanded the Warriors and will roll out a strategic plan, whose emphasis will be on the development of junior national teams, with the association hoping that this will roll out players good enough to take Zimbabwe to major international football tournaments in future.

The dissolution of the Warriors, announced by Zifa president Cuthbert Dube in Parliament yesterday, came just two days after coach Ian Gorowa tendered his resignation saying that his attempts to serve his nation had run into a number of hurdles.

The Zifa president made the announcement when he gave oral evidence before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture yesterday.

Dube also announced they had dissolved all the national football teams with immediate effect and their decision was reached following an emergency meeting held on Wednesday at the Zifa Village.

It’s not the first time, though, that Zifa have announced the disbanding of the Warriors.

Shortly after the national team failed to qualify for the 2012 Nations Cup finals, under coach Norman Mapeza, Zifa announced that they had dissolved the team although most of the players later featured in the subsequent assignments that followed.

“What I can reveal is that we have dissolved the national teams and this was done following our emergency board meeting yesterday (Wednesday).

“We now need to start afresh and should be appointing personnel to lead the teams,” said Dube.

He said Zifa was also focused on rolling out their strategic plan within the next month and that their thrust was now on developing the juniors teams so that they will be ripe to challenge for major assignments like the African Cup of Nations and the World Cup campaigns.

“For the immediate assignments, the Under-23 team players form the nucleus of the senior team but we have also restructured all teams from the Under-13s, Under-15s, Under-17s and Under-20s. We believe the future of Zimbabwe football lies in the juniors,” said Dube.

The Olympic team, who are the second-tier national team, have been inactive for a long time but Zifa hope to get them into the qualifiers for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which get underway this year.

As the Zifa board made their presentations, chairman of the committee Temba Mliswa pointed out that sport in Zimbabwe, especially football, was failing to produce the desired results because there was no national framework.

Mliswa challenged Zifa to produce a national plan for the game which focuses on developing the juniors guided by sound administration.

A former fitness trainer of the Warriors, Mliswa also insinuated that Gorowa was more of a player agent and than a football coach, saying that Mapeza would have done a better job than the South Africa-based gaffer.

But Dube took full responsibility for Gorowa’s appointment with the Zifa boss, however, saying there were things that the coach did which were not expected of him.

“When we appointed Mr Gorowa, we did not know anything (on assertions that he was a player agent). It was only after the game against Tanzania, which was a disaster, that six players were immediately sought in South African but as Zifa we have not yet received any transfer fees and we are still going through that process.

“I regard Gorowa as a son and I had a lot of minutes with him and I told him, urimwana kwandiri, you should guard your future with a lot of jealousy because you are still young and, as a person, you must operate honestly.

“I was disappointed with one player during CHAN, Gorowa did a fantastic job for the nation to reach that stage, but I was disappointed with one player who was continually selected while he was not performing well.”

During his reign as Zifa boss, the Warriors have changed coaches with Mapeza, Madinda Ndlovu, Tom Saintfeint, Rahman Gumbo, Klaus Dieter Pagels and of late Gorowa failing to take Zimbabwe to either the World Cup or Nations Cup finals.

“There are a number of factors that have led us to get a high turnover of coaches over the years. One of the reasons has to do with funding while the other we did not perform well and so they could not perform.

“We were also concerned more with our local boys in getting the jobs and some of them have done fairly well like this boy who just resigned, Gorowa, who also made history by beating Zambia for the first time in Ndola.

“Zambia had never been beaten in Ndola for 45 years but other than that the performance of our children (coaches) had not been very satisfactory.

“We will try to see if they can be understudies and learn the selection process, the coaching techniques, and so forth.

“On Norman Mapeza, Rahman Gumbo and of late Ian Gorowa. I will not mention this circus one Tom Saintfiet but of these, I pumped money out of my pocket. That was the period of the Government of National Unity and there was little money coming from Government.

“I would like to thank the Government for what they did for CHAN and for the first time, we got something in the region of US$70 000 and that was a positive move.

“So it’s part our strategic plan to have youth policies and contracts for coaches that are performance-based and that is the norm the world over,” said Dube.

Miriam Sibanda, the Zimbabwe Women’s Soccer League boss, said the women’s game was getting little support from the secretariat led by chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze.

Premier Soccer League chairman Twine Phiri and his chief executive Kenny Ndebele also made their presentations before the parliamentarians. The Herald