Opinion / Columnist
Overhaul the Ministry of Sport
26 Jul 2024 at 15:37hrs | Views
Do we still have the Minister of Sports in Zimbabwe? Surely this is the right time to start making some serious inroads and decisions on how they should run the most beautiful game of football in the country.
The current situation whereby our international matches are played outside the motherland is unhealthy and uncalled for.
If the government is able to construct new roads for a Sadc meeting, which will be there for just a few days, surely we can build stadia meeting the Caf standards.
It is so laughable to see a whole delegation of about sixty-seven people flying to France for Olympics games where there are only seven athletes competing.
That means nearly ten Zimbabwean officials have gone there to represent a single athlete. The government managed to take a bloated delegation paying for their air fares and travel and subsistence claims.
We saw Dynamos FC, the most popular football club in the country, who approached the South African local football board to secure a venue to host their CAF Confederation Cup. The deal collapsed after they were told to look elsewhere. The authorities informed them that Orlando Stadium was not available.
The ZIFA board was told long ago by the CAF inspectorate team to fix their football pitches, which were failing to meet the CAF standards, but they rather ignored the order and did nothing to rectify the problem, resulting in the board banning all local stadiums from hosting international matches. What is really the Minister of Sport, Kirsty Coventry, doing in the office? She has become a pale shadow of her duties.
It is time for the complete overhaul of this ministry and to put people who are passionate about football and able to move the sport forward. Football is serious business across the globe and has the potential to make billions of dollars if well marketed.
The Glamour Boys club is now considering moving their games to Botswana, yet we have a government that is constructing roads and villas for Sadc delegates who will be coming into the country for the Sadc Summit just for a few days.
In this case, Dynamos is likely going to lose the much-needed revenue from gate takings and are going to meet all the travelling expenses from Harare to Gaborone to fulfil their fixture. This does not augur well for the development of our football and paints a bad picture of the sport.
For the first time in history, the club will be playing their home International Confederations Cup against ZESCO United of Zambia away from their ceremonial home of football, Rufaro Stadium, and the giant National Sports Stadium. The Zimbabwean staunch football-loving fans have been dealt a very big blow by such a development.
It's time to act; our sport is dying under the administrative watch of an incompetent minister who seems not to know what she is supposed to be doing.
Email: konileonard606@gmail.com
X: @Leokoni
The current situation whereby our international matches are played outside the motherland is unhealthy and uncalled for.
If the government is able to construct new roads for a Sadc meeting, which will be there for just a few days, surely we can build stadia meeting the Caf standards.
It is so laughable to see a whole delegation of about sixty-seven people flying to France for Olympics games where there are only seven athletes competing.
That means nearly ten Zimbabwean officials have gone there to represent a single athlete. The government managed to take a bloated delegation paying for their air fares and travel and subsistence claims.
We saw Dynamos FC, the most popular football club in the country, who approached the South African local football board to secure a venue to host their CAF Confederation Cup. The deal collapsed after they were told to look elsewhere. The authorities informed them that Orlando Stadium was not available.
It is time for the complete overhaul of this ministry and to put people who are passionate about football and able to move the sport forward. Football is serious business across the globe and has the potential to make billions of dollars if well marketed.
The Glamour Boys club is now considering moving their games to Botswana, yet we have a government that is constructing roads and villas for Sadc delegates who will be coming into the country for the Sadc Summit just for a few days.
In this case, Dynamos is likely going to lose the much-needed revenue from gate takings and are going to meet all the travelling expenses from Harare to Gaborone to fulfil their fixture. This does not augur well for the development of our football and paints a bad picture of the sport.
For the first time in history, the club will be playing their home International Confederations Cup against ZESCO United of Zambia away from their ceremonial home of football, Rufaro Stadium, and the giant National Sports Stadium. The Zimbabwean staunch football-loving fans have been dealt a very big blow by such a development.
It's time to act; our sport is dying under the administrative watch of an incompetent minister who seems not to know what she is supposed to be doing.
Email: konileonard606@gmail.com
X: @Leokoni
Source - Leonard Koni
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