AN ULTIMATE DISGRACE: Zifa, the Ministry and SRC’s arrogance responsible for Fifa decision

The expected happened on Wednesday.

Zimbabwe joined one of a few countries to be suspended by Fifa from the football family.

The world governing body decided that is was done with Zimbabwe’s shenanigans. It said, no, we have tried but we are done.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino said, “So the football associations are suspended from all football activities with immediate effect and they know what needs to be done before they are re-admitted.”

And therein lies the whole story.

Zifa’s cluelessness

That this Zifa board’s election is the worst sin to fall upon Zimbabwe is difficult to argue. Zifa continued with its woeful council, open to persuasion via ambiguous statutes and laws. It employed an incompetent president and a board which was self-serving and morally bankrupt. There have been multiple screw-ups in which they presided over the worst sporting performances in the history of the country. Add to that, they showed mere appetite for power and lack of interest in the game.

The Ministry and SRC

Proxied by the Sport and Recreation Commission (SRC), the Ministry of Youth, Sport, Art and Recreation has showed a lot of interest in confrontation and very little in engagement. Look. They did try and ask Zifa to get their house in order but everyone and their kids should have known they could have done it another way. As if they had not learnt from their ill-fated attack on Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC), they took to attacking global entities to which Zimbabwe is a signatory. The Minister had a go, when she was very active on Twitter, at these organisations. In a world built on cooperation, this was not a good idea. And as if it was not aware of its own authority, SRC could have gone and convinced Zifa Council Members to turn on the board. Yet they decided government interference was the plan.

And then

Noone is coming out smelling of roses. Even the previous disinterested government of Robert Mugabe, getting barred over things that could have been fixed at home was out of the normal. The lack of desire to fix things internally is symptomatic of what happens at national level where talking and resolving is seen as a weakness or at least laden with so much complications.

The reality is, we had childish leadership all round and we suffer the ignominy of pariah status.