Govt does not influence staffing at Zifa- Hlongwane.

The Minister of Sports and Recreation Makhosini Hlongwane has said the government has not influence in the staffing at the Zimbabwe Football Association after the senators questioned him what was the ministry doing in assisting Zifa to come up with the winning technical team following the Warriors crashing in Rwanda.

The senators had asked if the ministry was not prepared to come up with the policy in the running of Zifa which will enable the nation to excel in football in terms of football coaching.

"As a policy matter regarding sport, football in particular, what is the Ministry's policy to ensure that there is success. It has almost become a ritual that when the Zimbabwe national soccer team goes out to compete, any other national team competing against it would see it as a walk-over," asked one senator Musaka.

"The impression given by the Minister to the other question was so quick and witty, almost to say, they are spectators. It is worrying and the Ministry should do something. What is it that they are doing as a matter of policy? As long as the recruitment base remains narrow, I am not sure whether much will be achieved."

Hlongwane said that is a staffing matter for the Zifa.

"The government does not influence issues of staffing for Zifa because that is interpreted as interference within the issues of football. Usually, this draws the ire of the Federation of International Football Association (Fifa). That said, it does not mean that we do not do anything as far as the success of football is concerned. As government, we should not be activity based or driven; we should be driven by issues of national strategy and structuring policy. If fully exploited, this should be able to provide the success dividend," he said.

He said what they were doing as far as the success of football in the country is concerned.

"Let me start by saying that, having performed badly in the campaign in Rwanda recently, I have called the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) as well as Zifa to sit down and do a post-mortem of what transpired. Some of the issues are technical and therefore fall firmly within the province of Zifa. However, at a strategic level, the issues that we have diagnosed as being the problems, not just for football but for all national sport associations are issues that are structural in nature. How are our national sports associations, Zifa included, structured?"Hlongwane said.

"How much outreach work do they have to do at the bottom of the pyramid, which is the grassroots sports?. Most sports associations do not have that kind of reach. In respect to football, there is a lot of football that gets played at the grassroots level. The problem is that football which is being played at the grassroots level is not organised, it is spontaneous."

He said therefore, what they have said is that Zifa should find itself present at the local grassroots structures.

"Put differently, we have asked all national sport associations to mirror the Government administrative structures in terms of how the architecture of their associations is designed. We have said whilst we will not want them to go to the sell which we think is rather over ambitious, certainly, we want them to be present at the ward so that they can compete in mobilising people for their particular sport cord. Zifa has agreed to do that immediately, so that they begin to organise community clubs at the grassroots, but that is not enough," he said.

"The other key aspect of your question is that there is a lot of latent talent that is resident at the grassroots. How do we make sure that talent is given access to the national team? We have asked Zifa to introduce a competition which is national in character that enables or provides an opportunity to community clubs to participate. In the process of doing that, government, Zifa, SRC and other stakeholders are involved in the talent identification process so that the talent that is resident at the grassroots, the bottom of the pyramid does not leak out of this barrel of a process that we have put in place, through the competition system that we are going to be introducing through Zifa. That is what we are going to be doing."

Hlongwane said they also have the school system that they are working with his colleague in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education.

"This is government policy and we are saying sport is now henceforth mainstreamed into the school system. That means sport has to be played in schools throughout the year not seasonally. Not only that, sport also has to be learnt in the classroom from ECD all the way up to the exit point at A Level," he said.