Mhlauri launches astonishing attack on ZIFA bosses

Mhlauri launches astonishing attack on ZIFA bosses

ATTACK: Former CAPS United and Zimbabwe coach Charles Mhlauri

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By Mduduzi Mathuthu
Posted to the web: 24/10/2008 00:40:12
CHARLES Mhlauri has called for a complete overhaul of Zimbabwe’s football management structure in the wake of the country’s failure to qualify for the African Cup of Nations and World Cup finals in 2010.

The former national team coach who was axed after Zimbabwe failed to qualify for the 2008 Nations Cup finals said it was “difficult to find any relationship between ZIFA officials and football”.

“We can look at all sorts of reasons for the state of our game that everyone else knows. The bottom line is that there are no competent administrators in Zimbabwean football,” the former AmaZulu and CAPS United coach told New Zimbabwe.com from his base in the United States.

Mhlauri led Zimbabwe to the 2006 Africa Cup of Nations finals – becoming only the second coach in history after Sunday Chidzambwa two years before him to achieve the feat.

The 39-year-old coach says bad management at the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) is compounded by lack of professionalism in the media which should be providing oversight – claiming some sports journalists were on the pay of ZIFA officials.

Mhlauri said: “Look at the leadership you have at ZIFA. If you wanted to introduce them at a football forum, you would have to speak for three house to convince people that they are in the football industry.

“But look at countries like Zambia… they have soccer legend Kalusha Bwalya as chairman of their football association, and they are making progress on the football field. Then come to Zimbabwe and you meet coaches in the streets. Go to ZIFA – there’s no-one with any meaningful soccer background. It’s not only now; it has been the case since independence in 1980, that’s why we have not moved much.

“It’s difficult to associate Wellington Nyatanga (ZIFA chairman) with excellence in any field, let alone football, and it’s even more difficult to find anything in Henrietta Rushwaya (ZIFA CEO) that is relevant to football. In short, anyone from any walk of life can end up in charge of our football.

“As long as we have no set of principles, guidelines and requirements for those in charge of our national game, we will always remain stuck.

“We must be collectively embarrassed as a country that Fifa came to our country and picked Felix Tangawarima (former soccer referee) to work for them, yet in Zimbabwe he was not recognised.

“Prominent people who have done well in football like Brighton Mudzamiri, Roy Barreto and Sunday Chidzambwa, who have the qualifications, have travelled the terrain but they are outside the system.

“We are all asked to glorify a culture of mediocrity, and as a result not going anyway.

“When we lose, we sing the old chorus, ‘let’s talk about youth development’. And the media comes in with their partisan interests, trying to protect their handlers at ZIFA. Some sections of the media have destroyed football in the country.

“Look at some of the things being cited now, we said them a long time ago, but the question for some journalists was ‘how do we promote our person’?

“I spoke about the need for proper friendly matches for the national team and focus on youth development but they said I was just making excuses for failure.

“I lost two games against Malawi away and Morocco away. For the game against Malawi, the players got together for the first time in a year for that game. You had players like Benjani (Mwaruwari) admitting the team played like a bunch of strangers, and he was right because no proper planning had gone into it.

“So the whole thing being said right now is rubbish. We have been here before, and we learnt nothing.”

Mhlauri, who led CAPS United to back-to-back league titles in 2004 and 2005, said he had nothing but admiration for under-fire coach Jose Valinhos who went several months without being paid.

He said: “I am probably not qualified to discuss Valinhos but given what he went through, I didn’t expect much. When you play friendly matches against Botswana and Iran where the officials come back richer than players, I can’t say the coach was wrong.

“I respect those who watched his team with reservations, but as coach he did not get the minimum support necessary to succeed. He got very strange friendlies against teams like Iran, Oman and Botswana. We are literally discovering countries to play football with… FIFA would struggle to locate some of them on the map.

“It really pains me; I feel pity for my countrymen. People are being hoodwinked into focusing on wrong issues… the media write the story and write the plot and football fans unknowingly buy the same rubbish.

“Our football is being killed by poor administration and sections of the media not conversant in things they claim to be pundits in. We have a poor administration which is surviving on hoodwinking and bribing journalists… right now its clear where we are going.

“The same people who said the Rafiq Khan ZIFA executive must resign for failing to go past the quarterfinals of the Nations Cup are now telling us that Nyatanga should apologise, and things will be fine. It’s the first remedial action of its kind in football; apologise for what?

“The fact remains that when we lose, people should be accountable. I can’t say Valinhos was fully supported to be held accountable, and I am not even talking about his salary. Again some red herrings about the CEO (Rushwaya) not being paid are being thrown about. That’s irrelevant!”

Mhlauri said he was not surprised Valinhos had been paid, as he was still owed money by ZIFA himself. He felt sorry, however, because Valinhos was a foreigner and probably did not know his way around like a local coach would for survival.

“I don’t know which coach was ever paid by ZIFA,” Mhlauri said. “I have money paid from my own pocket in departure fees and other such expenses still outstanding. I am still waiting for my payment, over a year later.”

Mhlauri believes Zimbabwean football will always struggle to attract financial sponsorship from the corporate world because the administrators do not inspire confidence.

He added: “People with money want to see integrity and professionalism. How do you invest your money when there is no-one who knows football? If you go to a car company and say ‘can give us cars’, they want to know who is at ZIFA, because ultimately, they want to further their corporate image. How do they market themselves with a bunch of people who are themselves not marketable?

“Look at the Zambian national team, they have had a training camp in Germany – that’s a reward for Kalusha’s credibility, contacts and experience.”

Zimbabwe will not kick a ball in major international competitions until 2011, and Mhlauri says focus should be put on young talent. He added that it was “stunning ineptitude” that ZIFA had moved to appoint Matongorere as technical director after the country failed to qualify for Ghana and South Africa 2010 – almost a year after former Zimbabwe coach and Fifa official Ben Kofie recommended his appointment.

He added: “When I was coach, I said our junior development programme was dead. I started a junior development programme. I was the first coach to come up with a plan to use local players for the COSAFA Cup. The move came out of the realisation that we have never had a junior national team at the World Youth Championships or Olympics.

“Some of those players who were beneficiaries of that plan are now coming into the national team from a programme I implemented in 2004 – players like Clemence Matawu, Onismor Bhasera, Method Mwanjali, Obert Moyo, Quincy Antipas, Vusa Nyoni, Honour Gombami and Takesure Chinyama.

“At the time, it was dismissed by the media. Even right now, they don’t talk about it because it jeopardises their agenda. I wanted to shape the national team’s future in terms of junior development… going through a transition period managed properly, and I had a plan for it. When I was fired, everything was thrown into the bin.

“Right now if we look at material in the country, we clearly have a crisis. We can’t have just one player (Benjani Mwaruwari) playing in a major foreign league. It points to failure right at the top, and that should change before long because trust me, we will be singing this same tune come 2011.”

(Mhlauri is a columnist for the Sunday Mail newspaper. Visit his website, CLICK HERE)

Zimbabwe’s Group 12 Results:

01/06/08 17:00 Guinea 0:0 Zimbabwe
08/06/08 15:00 Zimbabwe 2:0 Namibia
14/06/08 16:00 Kenya 2:0 Zimbabwe
22/06/08 15:00 Zimbabwe 0:0 Kenya
07/09/08 15:00 Zimbabwe 0:0 Guinea
11/10/08 16:00 Namibia 4:2 Zimbabwe

Group 2 Log (11/10/2008)

	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	Pts
1	Guinea	6	3	2	1	9	5	11
2	Kenya	6	3	1	2	8	5	10
3	Zimbabwe	6	1	3	2	4	6	6
4	Namibia	6	2	0	4	7	12	6

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