Zimbabwe: SRC’s Bold Stance Needs Support

A job well done to the Sports and Recreation Commission for the bold decision to relieve the ZIFA board of their duties because it was clear they were overwhelmed by the assignment of running our football.

However, the real fear is how do we move forward?

I am hoping, and praying, that the same spirit of boldness will continue, which entails not rushing into appointing a caretaker organ, to run the affairs of our beleaguered sport.

Resources are critical for the success of any venture, and the rehabilitation of football is no exception.

It is, therefore, imperative that adequate and well managed time is accorded to this restructuring, rehabilitation, which our football badly needs, right now.

This is a national cause and it should not be affected by fears that we could be banned from the next AFCON finals or thrown out of international football.

The reality, which should overshadow everything, right now, is that we need to fix our football and, at some stage, our entire sporting fraternity, if ever we hope to reach the Promised Land.

Every revolution has its own collateral damage.

I sympathise with all those who could be affected by the consequences that might arise but they also have to sympathise with the rest of the current and future nationals, whose paths to greatness, is being compromised by the shocking levels of incompetence, cluelessness and self-centredness in our sport, in general, and football, in particular.

I expect the relevant authorities to demonstrate what real governance is and, better still, what good sport governance is all about this time around.

Technically, the ownership of football has been taken back by the rightful owners of the game, and we sit back and anticipate that they will formulate and design appropriate structures, behaviours and policies that will control our game to the satisfaction of all concerned stakeholders.

FIFA, as joint owners of the game, if presented with the right and correct national strategic intent, backed by clear and concise objectives and strategies, are expected to understand our cause.

FIFA know that their competitions are the best that there is, and no one disputes that.

The ultimate desire of any participant, in football, is to take part in FIFA competitions but, in our case, we have just been window dressing these tournaments.

And, it’s something that is not acceptable.

My humble suggestion would be for the relevant authorities to publish the strategic plan for our football so that, in our national conversation about the game, we remain guided by a defined direction, as opposed to the current scenario where anyone and everybody, has their viewpoint.

There has been no convergence of the talking points, thereby creating a cacophonic confusion, and a recipe for sports administrators to get away with murder, so to speak.

Consensus, brews contentment, an ingredient for unity of purpose and a sure pathway to good results and happy ending.

Ordinarily, the ZIFA board are supposed to be a policy formulating, and superintending organ, to steward the national football activities.

There are two superior structures already above the Football Association, with requisite competence, expertise, skills and experiences to formulate and design policies, structures and behaviour, which will sustain whatever strategic intent that would have been agreed on.

The secretariat at ZIFA executes such policies, activities and programmes.

Appointing a caretaker committee has connotations of “interfering and usurping” FIFA-approved statutes.

One notable advantage of the superior structures, directly guiding ZIFA secretariat, is that they are representatives of the football nationals, they can be trusted to have a better picture as to what our game should be, they have a point to prove and they will circumvent the challenge of “agency problem.”

The disadvantage of a caretaker committee lies in the fact that all humans are fallible, presenting the danger of the possibility of distorting, misinterpreting and misunderstanding their terms of reference for selfish interest.

A direct link would serve our football better during the restructuring period, and thereafter elections can be sanctioned, when the relevant authority and the nation, are satisfied adequate ground work, has been installed.

I hope days of hiding behind threats of FIFA bans, to hide mediocrity and incompetence, are now behind us.

My humble appeal to all of us, sports administrators, is that if we endeavour to do the right thing, there will be no room for bureaucrats to doubt us.

At the moment, we are exhibiting a lot of shortcomings, creating fertile ground for what we then perceive as interference, brick bating and all sorts of abuses.

We have the power to stop what we selectively call interference, by educating ourselves on the dos and don’ts, of our industry.

Unlike in the past, the world is awash with texts, audio, videos, courses, seminars, workshops and institutions that can help us attain the right levels of knowledge, expertise and skills, to prepare ourselves for the world of good sports management.

The dearth of athlete development, dysfunctional lower-tier sports structures, amateurish behaviour camouflaged as professionalism, undocumented or absence of strategic plans, perennial electioneering mode, are all indicative of questionable competence.

Now, that something has been done, it is hoped and prayed that, we have opened a new chapter where supervision, superintendence, facilitation and guidance of the much-awaited growth of the sport industry, is back on course.

The fearlessness exhibited by the SRC is a display of patriotism, which demands and deserves support, commitment and involvement, from everyone.

With this kind of leadership, and attitude, I am excited that we could be now crawling towards being part of the multi-billion-dollar sport industry as a nation.

An athlete is just as good as a lawyer, doctor, professor or any other top professional, but for him and her to reap dividends, he or she needs the right environment.

The people responsible for that are the administrators and officials, within the entire hierarchy of sport management from government, quasi-government organs like the SRC, national sport associations, leagues, clubs, institutions of learning, communities, parents and guardians, as well as international federations and committees.

The SRC stroke of genius has thrown the “cat among the pigeons”; resulting in casting the spotlight on a number of affiliated and associated organisations and structures, including, leagues, clubs, athlete organisations, sponsors, athletes, corporates.

For a long time, many associations have been evading scrutiny because ZIFA’s bungling was so loud and overshadowing any other conversation, except the chaos and rot in our football.

Now that the ZIFA melee is under check, how about you and you?

It’s time for introspection, for all of us in sport organisation, administration, management, marketing, spectating and career reception.

Let’s commercialise sport, nothing is impossible when we forge a united sporting front, it’s all about team work.

I believe the SRC has now made the foundational step.

Nhamo Tutisani, (BSC Hons. Marketing (UZ), FIFA CEIS (NMMU), ASMC (ZOC)), is the CAPS United Football Club vice president.

by The Herald.