The Sunday News
By Bruce Itai Chimani
18 August 2012
EDUCATION, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart says football as a sport has a long way to go before it can start producing expected results, especially on international stages.
Speaking in a telephone interview, Coltart said that other sports such as rugby, hockey, cricket, golf and basketball were doing exceptionally well, in conformity with the revival of the economy. He said this was evident because of the resuscitation of national and regional leagues in most of the sports, while football, the most poplar sport in the country, is doing badly.
“The big negative in Zimbabwean sport is football. As much as it is the most popular sport, we cannot underestimate the impact that negative development has had. Asiagate, for example, has left football reeling from its negative impact,†said Coltart.
Coltart asserted that the Zimbabwe Football Association was in a poor financial state as evidenced by how they were having some of their property attached. He further slammed the high turnout of coaches as one of the reasons why football was doing badly.
“It’s amazing how there is always a huge controversy around whoever is made coach. We have heard so many coaches over the past fifteen years in football than in any other sport. Sports like cricket and rugby have had the same coach for over a decade now. See, the impact of this is that the performance of the team is undermined and the players are affected; hence there is no consistency in performance in our football. Here I am talking in particular to Olympics and international events,†he said.
Coltart, who was the head of delegation of Team Zimbabwe to the Olympic Games in London, said that if the nation performed well in football, the nation would avoid other evils in other sports, implying how the good performance of national football teams would cover up and ascertain the country’s general performance in sports.
“We have to consider our competitive and comparative advantage before we invest into football participation, especially at international level, the Olympics in particular. The question we need to ask is whether we are able to compete against sides like Ghana, Cameroon and so on. That is the harsh reality,†he said.
He further stated that the relevant bodies, Government included were supposed to focus on the 2020 Olympics, as a mark with which improvement will be assessed.
Coltart expressed great satisfaction on the state of other sporting disciplines saying they had “greatly†improved over the years.