Clear mess first, Biti tells Zifa

Daily News

By Godfrey Mtimba 

18 October 2011

Masvingo - Finance Minister Tendai Biti has told the financially-troubled Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) that government will not fund the game before the local football governing body put its house in order first.

Biti’s statement is in sharp contrast to Sports Minister David Coltart’s recent pledge to bail out the association in future following Zimbabwe’s failure to qualify for next year’s African Nations Cup qualifiers in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

Responding to an appeal from Zifa’s eastern region chairman, Wellington Muchemwa, who appealed for government assistance for the cash-strapped association, Biti responded with an attack on Zifa, accusing it of “ruining” the country’s most popular sport and running it like a “tuck-shop.”

“As for you guys from Zifa, I tell you to put your house in order first if you need assistance from my ministry,” retorted Biti.

“Football associations around the world make a lot of money if they are run properly and professionally, but here you are running it like a “tuck-shop”, thereby contributing to the demise of the good sport.”

Biti said Zifa must reform first for government to start funding its activities.

The image of football in Zimbabwe has been seriously tarnished by such scandals as the Asiagate match-fixing scam in which Zimbabwe national team players and officials were bribed by an Asian betting syndicate to affect the outcome of matches on several trips to the Far East between 2007 and 2009.

However, a new Zifa board chaired by Cuthbert Dube, which came into office last year, has been making concerted efforts to spruce up the local game’s image by launching a full investigation into the fixing allegations, with the blessing of world governing body Fifa.

Muchemwa, however, further pleaded.

“Minister, I have been sent by my boss Mr (Cuthbert) Dube to appeal for your assistance for our institution so that we ease some of the problems currently dogging us,” he said.

“We have a lot of talent in the country but the country’s football is not growing because of lack of sponsorship,” he said.

Still Biti was not convinced.

“That’s a lame excuse. Football everywhere has the potential of getting sponsorship from the corporate world if it is run professionally and properly by honest individuals,” he said.

“What is needed is to put your house in order and then the corporate world and government can chip in.

People will not be interested in investing in football when it is run by people who cannot be trusted, or who lack order,” Biti said, sparking off shouts of “Asiagate” from the floor.