Zifa-ZOC treatment of Mighty Warriors disgusting

We thought it was the beginning of a new era. We were wrong.

We thought we had turned a new page. We were wrong.

We thought they Zimbabwe Football Assocation and the Olympic Committee got it. We were wrong.

We were probably insane as a country to believe that the Mighty Warriors would be treated any better on their return than when they left. After all, there was very little fanfare for the first Zimbabwean team of any sport to ever make it to the Olympics since the hockey side of 1980. It was also the first ever football team from Zimbabwe to to represent the country.

History written all over.

They left with a whimper fro the representative organisations and returned to be treated like the ugly stepchild.

They charmed the whole world but not so much Zifa and Zoc who pretty much, from what we see from the outside have treated them as an inconvenience.

Yet the return looked different. They were greeted by both organisations and a bunch of fans. Then it went weird. They were going to be dumped in town and they said nah. Yes, after putting Zimbabwe on the map we don’t even have decency to take them out for lunch first. After that the girls were taken to Daisy Lodge where they were denied entry. After some well-wishers gave them food, there were given $5 each and told to be off then.

Our heroes were left on the street trying to get on a kombi to town and then to their homes. Just like that.

Zifa president Philip Chiyangwa says they are not the association’s responsibility and he may be technically correct but morally that has to be seen as a slight. It is immoral that we think that taking care of our heroes (or anyone for that matter) is not one’s responsibility.

When the Mighty Warriors made it to the Olympics was it not the same Zifa that took the accolades, lapped them up as testimony to the fact that they cared about the ‘girl child’ and whatever buzzwords that come along with it?

And yet today, it is not your responsibility.

As for the ZOC. Given they were your responsibility apparently, we can’t for the life of life itself see how you can explain this away. But we want one.

Zifa is an easy target for many. ZOC will lie hidden somewhere and pretend this is not happening. That school bus you offered the Mighty Warriors at the airport was a warning signing.

We should have seen it.